By Srian Obeyesekere

The adage, ‘The older the wine, the better it tastes’ cannot run truer than in the case of Sri Lanka Women’s Captain Chamari Athapaththu who led from the front to leading Sri Lanka to an emphatic 3-0 historic clean sweep over Bangladesh Women in the recently concluded T20I series in Sylhet.

Indeed, the Lankan talisman, who forayed into the big stage by a spectacular knock of 178 off 143 balls against Australia at the   2017 ICC Women’s World Cup in 2017, proved that old wine runs strong nine years later by a series dictating 3-0 clean sweep of Bangladesh Women recently by an all-round performance to drive home the point that several years later she remains a queen in the game. As supple and athletic a rhythm that has made her the live wire of Sri Lankan women’s cricket which she is credited with of having transcended during her time.

A fact the Lankan captain did take pride in when she recently said that she was delighted that ‘I am happy and proud to say that women’s cricket in this country evolved during my era where so many young players have emerged from the grassroots level to representing the country to injecting new life to bettering the game from a once dormant phase.

As it was, Athapaththu emerged in her characteristic loner role in carrying Sri Lanka through aggregating 115 runs from the three encounters, with scores of 32, 42 and 41, and also had four wickets to her name.

She drove it home by a quick fire 41 and 2 wickets in the final game in downing Bangladesh in the final game in a rain reduced 9 over affair when Sri Lanka scored 87 for 6 and reduced their opponents to 84 for