The opening Group A fixture at the tournament is a repeat of the Asia Cup semi-final back in July, where Sri Lanka triumphed in final-over thriller en-route to winning that competition outright.
And Sri Lanka will be looking for a similar positive result to give themselves a strong start in their bid to upset the odds and reach the T20 World Cup knockout stage.
This will be the only match where Chamari Athapaththu’s side will be the highest ranked during their group stage campaign, with fixtures against Australia, India and New Zealand to follow.
And form would suggest that they are strong favourites, with Pakistan suffering disappointing results in the warm-up matches, losing to Scotland and Bangladesh.
This is a new era for Pakistan women’s cricket, who are backing youngster Fatima Sana as captain as they look to freshen things up in the national set-up, and their 22-year-old skipper will be hoping for a morale-boosting win on the opening day.
What The Captains Said
Pakistan captain, Fatima Sana: “I will try to enjoy myself, express myself and back myself as well (as captain). Actually, our whole management is supporting me, and they told me that you just take a brave decision on the field, so just try to do this, be calm and just do whatever you want.”
Sri Lanka captain, Chamari Athapaththu: “We are coming with underdog tag all the time. So, we don’t have any pressure. I don’t want to take too much pressure on my shoulders and my teammates’ shoulders. But we keep it simple. I have a very young team, so we have a few seniors as well. I hope we can continue our best performance, because we’ve been playing really good cricket the last 16 months. This is a different format and different conditions, so we have to start again, fresh days. So, keep it simple, one ball one time, one game one time.”
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