By Srian Obeyesekete
A resurgent Sri Lanka on its young batting brigade downing cthe South Africans to upstage the high riding Indians is the generating hype to Sunday’s reface off of the two sub continent sides in the Women’s Tri Series fourth encounter at the R. Premadasa International Cricket Stadium.
It has lent to whether the young Lankan batting brigade that compensated for an usually highly reliant high scoring captain Chamari Athapaththu who fell cheaply against South Africa, would bring down the Indians this time around. She also disappointed against the Indisns.
In that backdrop would it be Indian leverage from greater experience and head to head 30 wins from 33 exchanges to Sri Lanka’s 3 with 1 no result or a resurgent Sri Lanka?
The game sees Harmanpreet Kaur’s charges all fired up from adding South Africa to their feather braced for a repeat show against the Lankans for an insulation in the finals while Chamari Athapaththu’s resurgent team by the facile 5-wicket trumping of the Proteas as well glued to evening up to bringing down the high riding Indians to an equal status quo two straight wins that would put them right up there to making it to the finals.
Sri Lanka’s hopes will lie greatly to the skipper reproducing the form Athapaththu is reputed for basking in top ranking big show three figure innings the Lankan camp will be highly expectant of.
The Harshitha Samarawickrama driven gung ho with the bat to which the likes of Dilhara Kavihari, Vishmi Gunaratne and Hasini Perera have been a lending force is a leverage to Lsnkan hopes.
Meanwhile, India will be dependant on their tried and tested duo of skipper Harmanpreet Kaur’s experience with over 300 runs from 17 ODIs while the in form Smriti Mandhana remains their center piece with 450 runs from 14 matches having struck a match winning 40 score against the Lankans and half century versus the South Africans.
Their reputed spinner is Deepti Sharma with 24 wickets from 12 ODIs.
But the inform bowler the Lankans will be looking to tackling will be Sneh Rana who has been India’s key wicket taker in this tournament with 3 against Sri Lanka and 5 against South Africa in that victory thrust.
