ICC 2020 WOMEN’S T20 WORLD CUP

Women’s cricket it will be that will shortly catch the focus of the world with the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2020 to be staged in Australia from February 21 to March 8. With, the participating countries busy with their final preparations, here in Sri Lanka the Women’s players have gone through hectic weeks of training and 12 practice matches under the watchful eye of Head Coach Harsha de Silva and all spruced up when the 15-member squad will take wing on February 6 Friday for Down Under where the extravaganza of the fairer sex from 10 nations in the fray in what holds out the promise of highly expectant action packed stuff in cricket’s short version of the game.

The Lankan squad interestingly sees 21-year old Harshitha Madavi elevated to the vice captaincy which is a shot in the arm for the new generation players who have progressively begun to make inroads to the team in keeping with the adage ‘new brooms sweep better than old brooms.’ 

For Sri Lanka, drawn in Group A, and led by the hard hitting 28-year old Chamari Atapattu, it will be a challenging call given the strong opposition they will face. However, coach Harsha is hopeful of his team creating a couple of upsets like beating India to advance to the big spoils. In Group A are Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh (by qualification) and India, and Group B West Indies, England, South Africa, Pakistan and Thailand (by qualification). While the curtain raiser will see Australia take on India on February 21 at the Sydney Showgroud, Sri Lanka’s first match will be against New Zealand on February 22 at the WACA, Perth while they take on defending champs Australia on February 24 at the Wanderers Cricket Ground, Windhok. England, the 2018 runners-up, will face South Africa on February 23 at the WACA, Perth.

Of course, four times winners of six cup tournaments Australia will be the top favourites to watch. Having trounced England by 8 wickets in the 2018 World Cup final in the West Indies, they have since consistently won majority of their fixtures and consists of some playmakers in Alyssa Healy and Ashleigh Gardner. The 10 top teams will play 23 matches, with the finals on March 8, 2020. Of the 10 teams, all eight have qualified automatically while Bangladesh and Thailand are the only two teams who have reached the tournament from the Qualifying Tournament.

SRI LANKA SQUAD:

Chamari Atapattu – Capt.,Harshitha Madavi – Vice Capt.,Anushka Sanjeewani, Hansima Karunaratne, Shashikala Siriwardene, Nilakshi De Silva, Ama Kanchana, Kavisha Dilhari,Udeshika Probodhani, Achini Kulasuriya, Hasini Perera, Sathya Sandeepani, Umesha Thimashini, Sugandika Kumari, Dilani Manodara.