LEVEL SERIES ON COURSE FOR AUTOMATIC 2025 W/C QUALIFICATION

 By Srian Obeyesekere

Skipper Chamari Athapaththu slammed a career best unbeaten Player of the Match 195 as Sri Lanka beat all the odds to hoisting a historic highest ever triumphant chase in Women’s ODI internationals running up 305 for 4 wickets off 44.3 over in hunting down South Africa’s 301 for 5 in trumping her counterpart, Laura Wolvaardt’s undefeated 184 in a shot for shot battle of the two captains to squaring the 3-match series 1-all at Senwes Park, Potchefstroom yesterday. It was the first time Sri Lanka Women trumped 300 in the format.

After South Africa had laid down the gauntlet on Laura Wolvaardt’s brilliant 147-ball innings tucked with 23 boundaries and 4 sixes, Athapaththu took up the enormous high road challenge to scaling the mountain in a 139-ball blitz of sheer bravado crashing the boundary on 26 occasions and 5 over the top to decorating her career in the highest rungs of the heroics to upping her standings as perhaps the greatest contemporary women’s batter in the game as she surpassed a previous best unbeaten 178 versus Australia.

Athapaththu’s effort was the greater in that it roared from the dumps of 126 for 4 after 21 overs in lifting her side to the ultimate in sharing in a 179-run fifth-wicket partnership with Nilakshika de Silva to whom as well the credit went to overcoming the vagaries of giving her captain the desired support by a dogged unbeaten half century off 71 balls content to reaching the boundary thrice. It was the second-highest stand for the fifth-wicket or lower in women’s cricket in that epic chase. Upfront, Athapaththu posted 90 for the first wicket with 18-year-old Vishmi Gunaratne who made 26.

It took Sri Lanka to seventh spot to remaining in the race for automatic qualification for the 2025 ODI World Cup.

Indeed, it was a herculean champagne serenading for the 34-year old Lankan skipper in the wake of leading the T20 side to a historic first ever 2-1 series win following up by coming from behind to squaring the ODI series.

CHIEF SCORES:

South Africa Women 301/5 (50 Overs)

(Laura Wolvaardt n.o. 184 147 23 4, Lara Goodall 31, Marizanne Kapp 36, Nadine de Klerk 35, Eliz-mari Marx n.o. 9, Kavisha Dilhari 4/30, Chamari Athapaththu 1/59)

Sri Lanka Women 305/4 (44.3 Overs)

(Chamari Athapaththu n.o. 195 139 26 5, Vishmi Gunaratne 26, Nilakshika Silca n.o. 50

71 3, Ayabong Khaka 2/54, Delmi Tucker 1/42, Nadine de Klerk 1/59)