The Lankan team overcomes the Bangladeshi side to preserve their World Cup campaign breathing

Women's Cricket World Cup, Navi Mumbai

The Lankan team 202 (48.4 overs): Hasini Perera 85 (99); Shorna 3-27

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

Sri Lanka win by seven runs

The Lankan cricket team took four crucial dismissals in the decisive over to achieve a heart-stopping win over their opponents and preserve their narrow hopes of making it for the tournament knockout stage intact.

Pursuing a attainable target of 203 on a good batting surface in Navi Mumbai, the Bangladeshi team needed nine more runs from the remaining six balls.

Yet, Sri Lanka captain Athapaththu claimed three wickets in four deliveries and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to secure a exciting success for Sri Lanka.

The triumph – Sri Lanka's initial of the competition after three defeats and two abandoned games against the Australian team and New Zealand – moves them tied on four tournament points with the Indian team and the New Zealand side, who meet each other on the coming Thursday.

Bangladesh, on the other hand, endured a fifth successive defeat since securing victory in their tournament opener against the Pakistani team and have been eliminated.

Although Bangladesh made the excellent commencement, with Marufa striking with the first delivery of the encounter to remove Vishmi Gunaratne, they were appropriately penalized for a disappointing fielding display.

They offered second chances to Perera, who was missed multiple times, and Athapaththu.

Even though the Sri Lankan skipper failed to take advantage, removed lbw for 46 just one delivery after being put down by Rabeya Khan, Perera forced the opposition pay.

She scored a maiden international half-century, scoring 85 from 99 bowls and building an significant 74-run stand fifth-wicket collaboration with Nilakshi de Silva.

The Bangladeshi team, led by Shorna Akter's 3-27, fought themselves back to the game, with Nilakshi's wicket in the 34th over triggering a Lankan batting collapse from 174 with four wickets down to 202 total.

While batting second, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Madara and Prabodhani restricted Bangladesh to 23-1 in a disappointing initial phase and they were afterwards diminished to 44 for three.

Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty reconstructed their batting effort, contributing 82 for the fourth wicket stand before the batter withdrew due to injury for a resolute 64 in the 36th innings segment.

It was advantage the chasing team entering the remaining two innings segments, with only 12 runs necessary.

However, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu Moni and conceded only three runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, skipper Joty and Marufa all removed as Sri Lanka grabbed the victory at the very end.

In the end, it was a contest of composure. The seasoned Lankan captain, who moved aside a handful of team-mates as she set herself to deliver the final over, kept hers. The opposition did not.

There will be numerous questions about Bangladesh's batting effort. They possibly have been pursuing 270 or 280 with Sri Lanka seeming comfortable on 159-4 in the 30th innings segment, but instead the target was considerably smaller.

However, the batting side displayed insufficient purpose from the very beginning, accumulating runs at below 2.5 runs each over during the initial phase, experiencing a top-order collapse, and ultimately leaving themselves overwhelming to achieve.

But whatever problems there are with their batting lineup, if they had taken their chances in the fielding area, that 203-run target objective would have been significantly smaller.

It required them three attempts to terminate the 72-run second-wicket association, with keeper Nigar Sultana not managing to grab a difficult chance behind the stumps to remove Hasini Perera on 23 before Athapaththu survived from a return catch possibility against Rabeya Khan.

Perera was missed again on 55 runs and 63 runs, the latter chance going directly to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover field, before finally being given out lbw by Shorna Akter as she attempted to increase the tempo with teammates being dismissed beside her.

Subsequently in the batting effort, there was additionally a missed stumping and a missed run-out, although the second one was a little unfortunate, with Jhilik substituting with the gloves after an injury to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are far from a single occurrence. They've missed 14 chances from a potential 27 chances at this tournament and have the poorest catching success rate (48.1 percent) of the eight teams.

They are a squad who are typically progressing in the right direction – they are participating in merely their second 50-over World Cup in the end – but inadequate fielding performance is a prominent issue which requires focus.