Sri Lanka overcomes the Bangladeshi side to preserve their tournament hopes breathing

ICC Women's World Cup, Navi Mumbai

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

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

The Lankan side emerge victorious by seven runs margin

Sri Lanka claimed four wickets in the decisive over to complete a nail-biting triumph over Bangladesh and maintain their narrow aspirations of making it for the World Cup semi-finals intact.

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

Yet, Lankan skipper Athapaththu took three wickets in four bowls and de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to bring about a exciting success for Sri Lanka.

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

The Bangladeshi team, on the other hand, experienced a fifth successive loss since winning their initial game against Pakistan and have been knocked out.

While the Bangladeshi side made the perfect start, with Marufa striking with the opening bowl of the game to dismiss Gunaratne, they were deservedly made to pay for a disappointing fielding effort.

They provided lifelines to Hasini Perera, who was missed on three occasions, and Athapaththu.

While Athapaththu could not capitalise, sent back leg before wicket for 46 one ball after being put down by Rabeya, Perera forced the opposition suffer.

She registered a debut international 50-run score, scoring 85 from 99 deliveries and building an crucial 74-run partnership fifth-wicket association with Nilakshi de Silva.

Bangladesh, led by Shorna's 3-27, dragged themselves back into the game, with Nilakshi's dismissal in the 34th bowling segment triggering a Sri Lanka collapse from 174-4 to 202 all out.

While batting second, Sri Lanka's opening bowlers Malki Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani restricted Bangladesh to 23-1 in a uninspiring opening overs and they were subsequently brought down to 44 with three wickets lost.

Sharmin Akter and Nigar Sultana Joty restored their batting effort, putting on 82 for the fourth wicket before Sharmin withdrew due to injury for a resolute 64 in the 36th bowling phase.

It was advantage the chasing team entering the last two overs, with merely 12 additional runs necessary.

However, Dasanayaka sent back Ritu and allowed merely three runs before the captain's chaos, with Rabeya, Nahida, skipper Joty and Marufa all sent back as Sri Lanka seized the triumph at the very end.

Ultimately, it was a game of nerves. The very experienced Athapaththu, who moved aside a handful of team-mates as she got ready to bowl the final over, held her composure. Bangladesh did not.

There will be numerous inquiries about the team's batting performance. They could easily have been chasing 270 to 280 with Sri Lanka seeming at ease on 159 for four in the 30th over, but rather the chase was significantly less.

Nevertheless, the batting side showed little purpose from the start, making runs at less than 2.5 runs per over during the powerplay, experiencing a top-order collapse, and finally leaving themselves overwhelming to accomplish.

But whatever problems there are with their batting approach, if they had seized their chances in the fielding department, that 203-run target goal would have been significantly lower.

It needed them three efforts to terminate the 72-run second-wicket, with wicketkeeper Joty being unable to grab a difficult chance as wicketkeeper to dismiss Hasini Perera on 23 before Athapaththu got a reprieve from a caught and bowled possibility against Rabeya.

The batter was missed once more on 55 runs and her score of 63, the final opportunity flying straight to Rubya Haider Jhilik at cover field, before eventually being trapped leg before wicket by Shorna as she sought to accelerate the scoring with batting partners falling beside her.

Later in the game, there was also a missed stumping and a missed run-out, even though the second one was a slightly unlucky, with Rubya Haider deputising with the wicketkeeping gloves after an injury to the regular keeper.

Regrettably for Bangladesh, such fielding problems are far from a single occurrence. They've failed to catch 14 opportunities from a potential 27 opportunities at this tournament and display the poorest catching success rate (48.1%) of the participating teams.

They are a squad who are typically heading in the right direction – they are competing in merely their second ODI World Cup after all – but substandard fielding standards is a prominent concern which demands improvement.