2024 WOMEN’S T20 WORLD CUP

By Srian Obeyesekere

Sri Lanka suffered a second consecutive defeat in the T 20 Women’s World Cup to Australia who made light of the contest by a margin of 6 wickets having dismissed the Lankans for 93 in the allotted 20 overs with Beth Mooney an upfront unbeaten 43 off 38 with 4 boundaries carrying the defending champions through, but not before surviving some anxious moments when the Lankans produced some brilliant fielding to pin the Aussies to 1 for 8 and 2 for 14 and 3 for 35 yesterday at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium.

But in the end, the Lankans were badly short of runs to sustain that early effort.

The Lankans were off to a bad start of 6 for 2 losing both openers Vishmi Gunaratne for a duck and skipper Chamari Athapaththu for 3 before a reign of tight pace bowling by Megan Schutt and Ashleigh Gardner. Both fellleg before wicket with Schutt starting the slump trapping Gunaratne followed by Gardner accounting for theLankan skipper. It got worse when Kavisha Dilhari became the third Lankan LBW victim to Sophie Molineux for 5 making it 25 for 3 after 6.4 overs.

Harshitha Samrawickrama 23 off 35 inclusive of 2 boundaries and Nilakshi Silva who carried her bat for 29 off 40 devoid of boundaries lifted the score to 56 for 4 before Samrawickrama spooned a return catch to Molineux as the Aussies made further inroads with the only other Lankan resistance from Anushka Sanjeewani a run a ball 16 hitting 2 boundaries.

Despite the win, the defending champions were short on the run rate that has put the heat on the Aussies to fighting it out to hitting the top two in their group.

Australia 94 for 4 (Mooney 43*, Perry 17, Sugandika 1-16) beat Sri Lanka 93 for 7 (Nilakshika 29*, Schutt 3-12, Molineux 2-20) by six wickets