Harshitha reaches career-best ICC Rankings

Harshitha Samarawickrama played a major role in helping Sri Lanka win the Women’s Asia Cup title (Pic courtesy SLC) 

A strong start to Sri Lanka’s tour of Ireland has helped Harshitha Samarawickrama reach new highs on the ICC Women’s T20 Rankings.  
Samarawickrama has continued her impressive recent run of form by improving to a new career-high rating on the latest ICC Women’s T20I Player Rankings.  
Samarawickrama played a major role in helping Sri Lanka to the Women’s Asia Cup title last month and the 26-year-old made a flying start to her side’s tour of Ireland with an unbeaten 86 in the opening match of that series in Dublin.  
The rich vein of form has helped Samarawickrama gain four spots on the latest T20I rankings for batters and moved the left-hander to a new career-best rating and up to equal 16th overall.  
There is also some joy for a pair of Sri Lanka’s bowlers, with Udeshika Prabodhani (up two places to 22nd) and Sugandika Kumari (up one spot to 26th) making gains on the updated rankings.  
Prabodhani picked up figures of one for 20 in that match against Ireland to boost her rating while Kumari was just as impressive with a spell of one for 23 during the seven-wicket triumph.  
There has also been some change near the top of the ODI Rankings following the recent completion of the tri-series between Scotland, Papua New Guinea and the Netherlands.  
Opener Saskia Horley was the leading run-scorer in that tri-series with a decent haul of 214 runs and that ensured the Scotland right-hander gained 60 places to move up to 47th overall on the updated list for ODI batters.  
Scotland teammate Darcey Carter rises from outside the top 100 to 63rd on the same list, while Papua New Guinea duo Tanya Ruma (up 41 places to 53rd) and Pauke Siaka (up 19 spots to equal 64th) made some decent gains following some good scores during the tri-series.  
Netherlands pacer Iris Zwilling (up 13 rungs to 32nd) was among the big movers on the updated rankings for ODI bowlers following her eight wickets at the tri-series, while Scotland spinner Abtaha Maqsood improved 24 spots to rise to 62nd after her series-best 10 scalps. (ICC)