PREVIEW
By Srian Obeyesekere
Hosts Sri Lanka snd India face off in tomorrow’s Women’s Tri Series final at the R. Premadasa International Cricket Stadium in a much hyped up showdown to either side having much to prove that they are the ultimate worthy champions with Chanari Athapaththu’s team out to bleed the Indians in a repeat show of their second round triumph while Harmanpreet Kaur’s charges will be smarting to avenging that defeat in what has built up to a tense tussle.
For one, the Lankan lasses, who raised their game by blowing out strong India to coming into contention in the final run up by a galling all-round performance, will however, be pushed to atone for the subsequent 76 run grazing by a hitherto winless South Africa to shedding those wounds of defeat which to an extent has impaled the victory impact against the Indians.
The Lankan camp will be largely addressing the negative approach against the Proteas starting from a won toss which would have served in good batting practice to the final handed to South Africa that pressurised the hosts attack in a 315 pulverisation to anting up from a blank sheet. Skipper Athapaththu self admittedly owning up to the mistake of removing 5-wicket trump card Dewmi Vihanga only exposes poor captaincy in a crunch situation where you don’t take off your inform wicket taking bowler. As importantly, the Lankan batters negative chase where mainly the two topmost Harshitha Samarawickrama and Athapsththu played half heartedly when it was their prime responsibility to convert the 124 for 2 wickets after 25 overs towards bridging the 192 gap was a bad let down.
By and large in a much festered final to that cup hurrah insulation of the mightier, Chamari Athapaththu will need to lead from the front by producing her best act with the bat in a significantly back at home show to overcoming what by the form book will be an all out Indian outfit the stronger by the awesome 337 score hammering handed to the South Africans with their batting line up by now having got into the rhythm of run making conditions to avenging the bad loss that dented an on the trot 8 match win record.
On the day, the Lankans have proved by that previous hands up victory that the head to head past record of India’s 30 wins to the locals 3 from 35 exchanges with 1 no result means nothing where they possess the firepower to get the better of the Indians.
Having said that it is notable that the Lankans did not field their best team against the South Africans and that one false move in team selection can be costly as was in their opening game against the Indians.
Probable Teams:
Sri Lanka Women
Hasini Perera, Vishmi Gunaratne, Harshitha Samarawickrama, Chamari Athapaththu (C), Nilakshi de Silva, Kavisha Dilhari, Anushka Sanjeewani (WK), Dewmi Vihanga, Malki Madara, Sugandika Kumari and Inoka Ranaweera.
India Women
Smriti Mandhana, Pratika Rawal, Harleen Deol, Jemimah Rodrigues, Harmanpreet Kaur (C), Deepti Sharma, Richa Ghosh (WK), Sneh Rana, Kashvee Gautam, Arundhati Reddy and Shree Charani
This post is an official press release by Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC).
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