Sri Lankan women’s cricket team skipper Chamari Atapattu always believes leadership never build up any pressure to play the game and always like to more focus on her batting to build up good innings. The left hand opener Atapattu gave her good leadership to win the championship of the Commonwealth qualifier tournament which concluded last Monday in Malaysia. As a team we played really well to qualify for the next Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. Finally we all are satisfied with team success. We couldn’t qualify for the World Cup earlier and at least qualification of this Commonwealth Games made real boost to the team, said skipper Atapattu. I am really happy with our team performances as well as my individual performances during this tournament.
As a player I wanted to go forward with my team to make my country proud.
The most important factor is our youngsters realized their responsibility and worked hard to get success. We can’t depend on seniors all the time. "I myself also can not give service for a long time and we have to groom juniors to continue this sport. Sachini Nissansala, Kavisha Dilhari the bowlers were impressive while we gave chance to Vishmi Gunaratne as opener as she also shown her potential and these are good signs for future. I think as a leader my duty is to give good support for the juniors. They should realize their responsibility. In addition Hasini Perera and Harshitha Madavi gave good support to me to handle the team and we have to groom this type of players for leadership".
"We never under estimate any opponent in this tournament. But we knew Bangladesh is the most competitive side while Scotland also had few players with high ranking in T 20 format. We expected more challenge from Scottish side but that was not as expected. However we were able to keep an unbeaten record to finish as champions and that was our focus before this tournament. We knew only one team is eligible to get qualification and we had to beat all teams to get this position," said Atapattu.
Meanwhile Chamari Atapattu is going to play another franchise tournament Fair Break Invitational tournament conducted by Hong Kong cricket which scheduled to be played in next May. "I already contracted with this tournament and it’s going to be held in Dubai. Sri Lanka women’s scheduled to play Pakistan series in Dubai before the Commonwealth Games and I can easily join with National team after this franchise tournament.
I think playing more franchise tournaments always give more exposure and I had that opportunity with playing Women’s Big Bash league in Australia and Women’s IPL. We can involve with experienced world class players during this type of tournaments and share with their views which always helpful to build up our career," said Atappattu.
The Skipper Atapattu also pointed out importance about the players fitness. This has to focus all players and we are planing to give first priority to fitness one month after this Malaysian tour. Especially today most of the foreign teams focus on fitness and we couldn’t make good challenge in this sport without maintaining fitness. Due to Global pandemic we had to train under Bio Bubble and it’s difficult to maintain fitness. Now we have to work hard for our fitness and it’s always players responsibility to keep their fitness levels high.
Chamari Atapattu also bowled with off spinners and finished best figures of 3 for 17 in the last decider game against Bangladesh. "I never focus bowling during the practices and always work hard for batting. However I could manage to bowl and pose a good challenge at any occasion and I did it at the last Bangladesh match. But we have enough spinners and I never tried to bowl long spells, as I wanted to give them chance to bowl".
Meanwhile Chamari Atapattu who performed with the bat also earn the Player of the Series award at the Commonwealth qualifier tournament and she is already among the first ten players of the ICC T- 20 latest rankings. She is in eighth place at the T -20 batting ranking while seventh place at the T-20 all rounder rankings.
"I am very happy to be among first ten players of this ranking lists. We couldn’t play more matches recently due to the global pandemic. If I had more matches I am sure I can go ahead of this rankings. I saw ICC named world T-20 and world ODI women’s teams and I have no surprise my name is not included for both teams and same reason if I had chance to play more matches I could have had a chance to enter this teams. That was my lost opportunity and cant’ help at this stage," said Atapattu.
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