The Lankan team overcomes the Bangladeshi side to maintain their tournament hopes ongoing
The Lankan team will face the Pakistani side in their decisive final group encounter
ICC Women's World Cup, Mumbai
The Lankan team 202 (48.4 overs): Hasini Perera 85 (99); Shorna Akter 3-27
The Bangladeshi team 195-9 (50 overs): Nigar Sultana Joty 77 (98); Chamari Athapaththu 4-42
Sri Lanka emerge victorious by seven runs
Sri Lanka secured four crucial dismissals in the decisive over to seal a heart-stopping triumph over their opponents and maintain their faint hopes of qualifying for the tournament knockout stage ongoing.
Pursuing a modest total of 203 on a batting-friendly pitch in Navi Mumbai, Bangladesh required nine additional runs from the final six bowls.
Nevertheless, Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu secured three important dismissals in four deliveries and Nilakshi de Silva dismissed via run-out Nahida Akter to achieve a dramatic victory for the Lankan team.
The triumph – Sri Lanka's maiden of the World Cup after three defeats and two abandoned games against Australia and the Kiwi side – pushes them level on four tournament points with India and the New Zealand side, who confront each other on the coming Thursday.
Bangladesh, however, endured a fifth successive setback since winning their initial game against Pakistan and have been removed from contention.
Although the Bangladeshi side made the excellent commencement, with Marufa taking a wicket with the opening bowl of the game to remove Gunaratne, they were appropriately made to pay for a poor fielding effort.
They offered lifelines to Perera, who was missed three times, and the Lankan captain.
While the Sri Lankan skipper could not take advantage, dismissed leg before wicket for 46 a single bowl after being dropped by Rabeya Khan, Perera made Bangladesh suffer.
She scored a maiden international half-century, making 85 from 99 deliveries and contributing to an important 74-run partnership fifth-wicket association with Nilakshi de Silva.
The Bangladeshi team, led by Shorna's 3-27, dragged themselves back to the game, with De Silva's removal in the 34th bowling segment initiating a Sri Lanka batting collapse from 174-4 to 202 total.
In reply, the Lankan team's opening bowlers Malki Madara and Udeshika Prabodhani limited the opposition to 23-1 in a disappointing opening overs and they were later diminished to 44 with three wickets lost.
Sharmin Akter and Joty reconstructed their score, putting on 82 runs for the fourth wicket stand before the batter left the field injured for a resolute 64 in the 36th innings segment.
It was leaning toward Bangladesh heading into the remaining two innings segments, with just 12 more runs required.
Yet, Dasanayaka dismissed Ritu Moni and conceded merely three scoring runs before Athapaththu's decisive intervention, with Rabeya, Nahida Akter, captain Joty and Marufa all dismissed as Sri Lanka seized the win at the very end.
Bangladesh cannot keep calm - and fielding opportunities
In the end, it was a contest of nerves. The very experienced Athapaththu, who moved aside a several of teammates as she prepared to bowl the decisive over, held her composure. The opposition could not.
There will be many questions about the team's batting display. They could easily have been needing 270 to 280 with the Lankan team appearing comfortable on 159-4 in the 30th over, but in contrast the chase was much lower.
However, the batting side displayed insufficient aggression from ball one, accumulating runs at less than 2.5 runs per over during the opening overs, experiencing a early batting collapse, and ultimately leaving themselves too much to accomplish.
But no matter what issues there are with their batting lineup, if they had accepted their opportunities in the field, that 203-run goal would have been substantially lower.
It took them three attempts to break the 72-run partnership second-wicket, with keeper Joty failing to take a difficult opportunity behind the stumps to dismiss Perera on 23 runs before Athapaththu got a reprieve from a return catch possibility against Rabeya Khan.
The batter was spilled further on her score of 55 and 63 runs, the final opportunity flying right to Jhilik at cover, before eventually being dismissed lbw by Shorna Akter as she tried to increase the tempo with partners falling around her.
Subsequently in the innings, there was also a missed stumping and a missed run-out, while the latter was a little unlucky, with Jhilik deputising with the gloves due to an injury to Joty.
Unfortunately for the team, such fielding woes are not at all a single occurrence. They've dropped 14 catches from a potential 27 chances at this tournament and boast the lowest catching success rate (48.1%) of the competing sides.
They are a team who are generally moving in the right direction – they are participating in only their second ODI World Cup after all – but poor fielding is a glaring problem which needs attention.