The Lankan team overcomes Bangladesh to keep their tournament hopes ongoing

ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai

Sri Lanka 202 (48.4 overs): Perera 85 (99); Shorna 3-27

Bangladesh 195-9 (50 overs): Nigar Sultana Joty 77 (98); Chamari Athapaththu 4-42

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs margin

Sri Lanka took four crucial dismissals in the last over to seal a thrilling victory over Bangladesh and preserve their narrow hopes of qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals alive.

Chasing a below-par target of 203 on a batting-friendly pitch in the Mumbai stadium, Bangladesh required nine more runs from the last six bowls.

However, Lankan skipper Athapaththu secured three wickets in four deliveries and Nilakshi de Silva ran out Nahida to achieve a thrilling victory for the Lankan team.

The victory – the Lankan team's first of the competition after three unsuccessful matches and two washed-out matches against Australia and New Zealand – moves them tied on four tournament points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.

The Bangladeshi team, in contrast, suffered a fifth successive setback since winning their initial game against the Pakistani team and have been removed from contention.

Although Bangladesh made the excellent commencement, with Marufa Akter striking with the first delivery of the encounter to dismiss Vishmi Gunaratne, they were rightfully punished for a disappointing fielding performance.

They provided second chances to Perera, who was spilled on three occasions, and the Lankan captain.

Although Athapaththu could not make it count, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 a single bowl after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Perera forced the opposition pay.

She scored a maiden international 50-run score, making 85 from 99 bowls and building an important 74-run partnership fifth-wicket collaboration with Nilakshi de Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, spearheaded by Shorna Akter's impressive bowling figures, fought themselves back into the contest, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th over causing a Lankan downfall from 174 for four to 202 all out.

While batting second, the Lankan team's starting bowlers Madara and Prabodhani restricted Bangladesh to 23 with one wicket down in a lacklustre powerplay and they were afterwards brought down to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty reconstructed their score, adding 82 for the fourth wicket before Sharmin withdrew due to injury for a determined 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was leaning toward Bangladesh approaching the remaining two overs, with just 12 additional runs required.

However, Sugandika Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu and conceded merely three scoring runs before Athapaththu's chaos, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa Akter all sent back as the Lankan team snatched the victory at the very end.

In the end, it was a game of composure. The highly experienced Lankan captain, who ushered away a few of fellow players as she got ready to bowl the decisive over, maintained her composure. The opposition did not.

There will be many inquiries about the team's batting performance. They could easily have been chasing 270 or 280 with Sri Lanka looking settled on 159 for four in the 30th over, but instead the target was considerably smaller.

However, Bangladesh displayed insufficient aggression from ball one, scoring at below 2.5 scoring rate during the initial phase, experiencing a early batting collapse, and finally leaving themselves overwhelming to do.

But no matter what difficulties there are with their batting approach, if they had seized their opportunities in the fielding area, that 203 total target would have been substantially smaller.

It needed them three attempts to end the 72-run second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Nigar Sultana failing to take a tough catch while keeping to dismiss Hasini Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu survived from a caught and bowled chance against Rabeya.

Perera was spilled again on 55 and 63 runs, the final opportunity going right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before ultimately being trapped lbw by Shorna as she attempted to up the ante with partners being dismissed around her.

Afterwards in the innings, there was furthermore a missed stumping and a failed run-out, while the run-out chance was a slightly regrettable, with Jhilik substituting with the wicketkeeping gloves due to an fitness issue to Joty.

Sadly for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are nowhere near a isolated incident. They've missed 14 catches from a possible 27 opportunities at this competition and boast the poorest catching success rate (48.1%) of the competing sides.

They are a team who are overall progressing in the correct path – they are competing in only their second 50-over World Cup ultimately – but inadequate fielding is a glaring concern which demands improvement.