Sri Lanka Cricket have named a 15-member squad for the Commonwealth Games Women’s Cricket competition.
The 8-team T20 tournament is set to begin on the 29th of July, With Australia facing off against India in the tournament opener. Australia, India, Barbados and Pakistan will feature in Group A, while Sri Lanka will compete in Group B alongside England, New Zealand and South Africa in Round 1. The top 2 teams from each group will move on to the semi-finals.
England took the 1st spot of the tournament as hosts, while India, Pakistan, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and Barbados (West Indies representative) gained direct qualification to the tournament by virtue of their rankings. Sri Lanka made it through by winning the Commonwealth Games Qualifier tournament that was held earlier this year; they beat Bangladesh by 22 runs in the final of the competition.
Sri Lanka’s most recent outing in the T20I format ended quite well, as they beat India by 7 wickets in Dambulla in June; they did however lose the series 2-1, after going down in the 1st two games.
Sri Lanka Cricket have opted for the same 15-member squad that featured in that series. Chamari Athapaththu will be the key batter for Sri Lanka, alongside Hasini Perera, Harshitha Samarawickrama, Nilakshi de Silva and Kavisha Dilhari, while on the bowling front, Inoka Ranaweera will be expected to do the bulk of the wicket-taking.
Others to watch out for would be teenaged opener Vishmi Gunaratne and veteran off-spinning all-rounder Oshadi Ranasinghe.
Sri Lanka’s tournament opener will be against England on the 30th of July and then play New Zealand on the 2nd of August and South Africa on the 4th of August in the 1st Round. All games of the competition will be played at the Edgbaston Cricket Ground in Birmingham.
The Squad
Chamari Athapaththu ©, Hasini Perera, Harshitha Samarawickrama, Vishmi Gunaratne, Malsha Shehani, Nilakshi de Silva, Kavisha Dilhari, Ama Kanchana, Achini Kulasuriya, Inoka Ranaweera, Udeshika Prabodhani, Sugandika Kumari, Rashmi de Silva, Oshadi Ranasinghe, Anushka Sanjeewani
