By Leonard Ratnayake
Sri Lanka women cricketers created history by beating their English counterparts convincingly by two matches one in England in their T20 international series to mark their first-ever win over England.
A sunny and warm day in Derby was the perfect setting for a scintillating finale between the high-riding English women cricketers and the so-called underdogs Sri Lanka and the best result Sri Lanka ever wanted beating England by seven wickets to record their first-ever overseas series win.
Sri Lanka outplayed England in the second encounter to beat England by 7 wickets, while the first was a DLS result win for England by 12 runs.
Given the first lease of the wicket, England’s batters failed to show promise once again as they failed to capitalise on the power play losing three wickets for 41 runs. Inosha Priyadarshani gave a perfect start with a first-ball wicket as Danni Wyatt was caught by Hasini Perera. The danger woman Alice Capsey was run out for nine.
It was up to Amy Jones and skipper Heather Knight to rescue the innings for the host, and they took it slowly to stabilise the innings before the latter was trapped leg before wicket for 18 in the ninth over. Jones was caught by Atapattu in the next over to send England reeling at 72 for five.
In the second half of the innings, England managed only 44 runs in nine overs to set Sri Lanka a target of 117 to win.
Captain Chamari Atapattu led the charge early showing her intentions to wrap up quickly. The opening pair set the winning tone finishing the powerplay on 58 for no loss. Atapattu was 38 off 25 balls, which included two towering sixes and four fours to the much delight of noisy Sri Lankan supporters, while Sanjeewani was 16 off 11 balls.
Atapattu was eventually out for 44 going for another big to be caught at long-on off the bowling of Alice Capsey. Sri Lanka was recording a run rate of 9.8 per over with the required reading of 3.9 per over. The equation was Sri Lanka needing 52 in 80 balls with nine wickets in hand.
To the much delight of their coach Rumesh Ratnayake, the rest of the lasses made sure that they bat until victory.”Chamari is undoubtedly a match-winner, but I wanted to see other batters take the responsibility to take it to the end, I am happy they did, it is a big win for all of them”
Anushka Sanjeewani made a solid 20 runs, while Harishitha Samarawickrema with an unbeaten 26 made sure that her side was through to victory.
Newly appointed Tharindu Perera, a former ECB coach, who lived in England for over a decade said that he spotted that Sri Lanka girls are very talented and that it needed a bit of cushioning to make it a champion outfit. “Sri Lanka girls have the talent, their determination is tremendous, they lacked much needed positive mind-set to play positive cricket. I am happy they are coming out of their doldrums. they will be world beaters soon”
Teenager Vishmi Gunarathne made 8 while Hasini Perera was unbeaten on 9 as Sri Lanka made the winning runs with seven wickets in hand and 18 balls to spare.
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