Sri Lanka went down by 52 runs to neighbouring India in their 4th game of the Women’s Asia Cup T20 tournament in Bangkok, earlier today. With the loss, Sri Lanka are more or less out of the tournament.
Indian skipper Harmanpreet Kaur won the toss and elected to take 1st lease of the wicket. Mithali Raj and Smriti Mandhana were untroubled by Sri Lanka’s bowling arsenal but proceeded cautiously to put on 46 in 9.3 overs. Off-spinner Chamari Atapattu made the breakthrough for Sri Lanka as she had Mandhana caught by Sugandika Kumari for 21.
Another 40 run partenership between raj and Vedha Krishnamoorthy steadied the Indian innings as the pair took the team to 96 in just over 16 overs. India would be disappointed with their finish however as neither Raj nor Captain Kaur could get going in the latter part of the innings.
Udeshika Prabhodini, Sripali Weerakkody and Atapattu picked up a wicket a piece while Kumari had Raj run-out in the final over of the innings.
Chasing a relatively challenging total, the Lankans never really got their innings going. Openers Atapattu and Hasini Perera found the runs hard to come by early on in the innings and that trend continued throughout the innings. Sri Lanka’s biggest partnership of the innings (17 runs) came between Prasadini Weerakkody and Dilani Manodara for the 3rd wicket. Incidentally the pair were the only batters to make it to double figures as Sri Lanka crawled to 69/9 in their allotted overs.
Preeti Bose and Ekta Bisht were the pick of the bowlers as they picked up 3 wickets a-piece.
Sri Lanka will face Bangladesh in their last game of the tournament tomorrow. Even if they manage to win against the Bangladeshis, the chances of them progressing to the final are slim as Pakistan would need to lose to Thailand to finish on equal footing with Sri Lanka.
