By Srian Obeyesekere
Sri Lanka went down fighting posting a challenging 229 with skipper Chamari Athapaththu striking 51 off 66 balls, but South Africa came on top by seven wickets in the second ICC Women’s ODI Championship fixture with the home team skipper Laura Wolvaardt going one better stroking an unbeaten 110 as the hosts won by seven wickets at Kimberly to take a 1-0 lead in the three-match series, the first having been rained off. Marizanne Kapp lent her captain great support by an unbeaten 80.
Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu struck a forceful 51 off 66 balls, but her effort was overshadowed by the century heroics of her counterpart Laura Wolvaardt who stroked an unbeaten 110.
The win saw South Africa with two more points cement their second spot in the women’s championship while Sri Lanka, in eighth spot, remained outside the automatic qualification zone for the 2025 World Cup, in eighth spot.
Athapaththu, who performed magnificently in guiding Sri Lanka to a historic maiden series win over the South Africans in the T20 series, dispatched the first ball she faced from Eliz-Mari Marx for four and went on to score five more boundaries off her, including four successive fours in the 14th over. She put on 58 for the second wicket with Hasini Perera, who survived a dropped catch by Sune Luus at slip. It was the Lankan skipper’s 16th ODI half century.
Sri Lanka was on course for a 250-plus total when they were sitting pretty on 152 for 3 after 35 overs following a fourth-wicket partnership of 61 off 69 balls between Hansima Karunaratne and Kavisha Dilhari. Karunaratne hit the only six of the Lankan innings, but following her dismissal Sri Lanka lost 3 wickets for 20 under four overs and went past the 200-mark, thanks to a seventh-wicket partnership of 41 off 51 between Oshadi Ranasinghe and Nilakshika Silva as the Lankan lasses overcame the minuses to setting the hosts a challenging target.
South Africa 233 for 3 (Wolvaardt 110*, Kapp 80*) beat Sri Lanka 229 (Athapaththu 51, de Klerk 3-23, Khaka 3-28) by seven wickets.
