We can compete with big sides – Tillakaratne

By Amindha de Alwis

Head Coach of the Sri Lanka Women’s cricket team, Hashan Tillakaratne said that Chamari Athapaththu’steam believes in their ability to compete with the top sides and that they will take the momentum from their final T20I win versus India into the ODI series commencing today (1).

The seven-wicket win on Monday, broke a streak of 12-straight losses in the format versus India and was also Sri Lanka’s first win against them at home.

“With the momentum from winning the last T20, the players believe that they can compete with the top sides. This is something we did not have for a while. To be honest, looking at the Pakistan series and this one, we thought if not for some small mistakes, we had the chance of winning the series,” he said.

Ahead of the three-match ODI series, Tillakaratne revealed that Sri Lanka was looking at playing four spinners in their bowling attack, following a promising display in the shorter format.

“We have not picked the final eleven for tomorrow as of yet. In these conditions, and looking at how well our spinners bowled in the T20 series, we have a good chance of going in with four spinners in tomorrow’s match,” he shared

The Head Coach was also impressed with 16-year-old Vishmi Gunaratne who opened the batting during the series and stated that she can make a huge impact on Sri Lanka Women’s cricket going ahead.

“She is very impressive. We identified her more than a year ago and she has regularly been in our squads. We took her for the World Cup Qualifiers in Harare, but she unfortunately was unable to play as she contracted Covid. After that we took her to Malaysia for the Commonwealth Games Qualifier where she played all four games.”
“We have seen a big improvement in her. She is still a schoolgirl and sat her Ordinary Levels just two months ago. If we look after her properly, I believe she can do great things for Sri Lanka Women’s cricket in future,” he expressed.