The Lankan team overcomes Bangladesh to preserve their campaign alive

Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side win by seven runs margin

The Lankan cricket team secured four wickets in the last over to achieve a heart-stopping win over their opponents and maintain their faint aspirations of making it for the World Cup semi-finals ongoing.

Chasing a attainable target of 203 on a batting-friendly pitch in the Mumbai stadium, the Bangladeshi team required nine additional runs from the final six balls.

Nevertheless, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu secured three wickets in four bowls and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida to achieve a exciting success for Sri Lanka.

The victory – the Lankan team's maiden of the competition after three unsuccessful matches and two washed-out matches against the Australian team and New Zealand – pushes them tied on four match points with the Indian team and New Zealand, who meet each other on Thursday.

Bangladesh, however, suffered a fifth successive setback since winning their initial game against Pakistan and have been knocked out.

While the Bangladeshi side made the excellent commencement, with Marufa striking with the opening bowl of the encounter to send back Gunaratne, they were deservedly penalized for a disappointing fielding performance.

They offered reprieves to Perera, who was dropped three times, and the Lankan captain.

While the Sri Lankan skipper could not capitalise, removed lbw for 46 just one delivery after being missed by Rabeya, Perera made the opposition pay.

She registered a debut international half-century, making 85 from 99 bowls and contributing to an crucial 74-run fifth-wicket with Nilakshi de Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, guided by Shorna Akter's three wickets for 27 runs, pulled themselves back in the match, with Nilakshi's dismissal in the 34th over triggering a Sri Lanka collapse from 174-4 to 202 all out.

During their chase, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Malki Madara and Prabodhani contained Bangladesh to 23-1 in a lacklustre initial phase and they were afterwards reduced to 44 for three.

Sharmin and Nigar Sultana Joty restored their innings, adding an 82-run partnership for the fourth wicket stand before Sharmin left the field injured for a stubborn 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was advantage the chasing team entering the last two innings segments, with just 12 more runs necessary.

Yet, Sugandika Dasanayaka removed Ritu Moni and allowed merely three scoring runs before the captain's dramatic spell, with Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa Akter all removed as the Lankan team snatched the victory at the death.

In the end, it was a match of nerve. The seasoned Athapaththu, who ushered away a few of team-mates as she prepared to bowl the decisive over, kept her nerve. Bangladesh could not.

There will be many inquiries about Bangladesh's batting display. They might well have been chasing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka seeming comfortable on 159 for four in the 30th bowling phase, but rather the chase was much lower.

Nevertheless, the batting side showed little intent from the very beginning, accumulating runs at under 2.5 runs each over during the powerplay, suffering a top-order collapse, and eventually leaving themselves too much to do.

But whatever difficulties there are with their batting approach, if they had seized their catches in the field, that 203 total target would have been considerably lower.

It needed them three efforts to break the 72-run second-wicket collaboration, with keeper Joty not managing to hold a difficult chance behind the stumps to send back Hasini Perera on 23 before Athapaththu survived from a return catch chance against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was dropped further on 55 and 63, the final opportunity traveling right to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover position, before finally being given out lbw by Shorna as she tried to increase the tempo with partners getting out near her.

Later in the innings, there was furthermore a missed stumping and a run-out opportunity lost, although the second one was a slightly unfortunate, with Rubya Haider substituting with the keeping duties due to an fitness issue to the regular keeper.

Unfortunately for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are far from a isolated incident. They've dropped 14 catches from a potential 27 at this World Cup and have the poorest catching success rate (48.1 percent) of the competing sides.

They are a side who are generally moving in the right direction – they are playing in merely their second 50-over World Cup after all – but poor fielding standards is a prominent issue which needs attention.