Sri Lanka women’s team led by Chamari Atapattu will meet New Zealand women’s team led by Sophie Devine in their first ODI of the three match series today (27) at Galle International cricket stadium, commencing at 10a.m.
We are expected to make good challenge against New Zealand and this is going to be good match exposure for us said Sri Lanka women’s cricket head coach Rumsh Ratnayake. We know New Zealand women’s team is very strong and we want to give our best to make a good fight throughout the series, said former Sri Lankan paceman Rumesh who is handling the women’s team after the successful Bangladesh cricket series. Sri Lanka won 1-0 ODI series against Bangladesh and won the T-20 series 2-1 a big boost to Sri Lankan lasses.
Out batting, bowling and fielding are in good shape t while we have home advantage in this series while out spinners are in good form to put up a challenge said Sri Lanka women’s coach. We have new batting specialist coach Malinda Warnapura, bowling coach Omesh Wijesiriwardena and fielding coach Carman Mapatuna and all of them have good commitment with the players to prepare for this series.
This is the first time New Zealand women’s arrived here to play cricket series and it’s going to be historic one and so far two teams have met 10 times in each format (one days and T-20’S ) but Sri Lanka never won a single game and this time Sri Lanka want to win the game to have a winning mentality.
New Zealand won the ODI world cup in 2000 while they were runners up in 1993 and 2009 while they have a very experienced side this time to compete with Sri Lanka team. According to ICC ranking New Zealand ranked 5th at ODI’S while Sri Lanka is ranked 10th while New Zealand are ranked 3rd and Sri Lanka 8th in T-20 ranking.
We never think about rankings and we want to do our best to give a good challenge, said coach Rumesh Ratnayake. We had few training sessions at Galle grounds while we are going to select the final eleven today after examining the wicket.
The 33 year old New Zealand skipper Sophie Devine a good leader while Suzie Bates the world rank number 4 women’s batter is the key player of the team while Bates having 12 ODI Centuries already played 148 matches and scored 5267 runs and her experience is very vital for the New Zealand team.
Meanwhile Sri Lanka women’s made only one change from last Bangladesh series while Hansima Karunaratne will join the team to strengthen the batting line up. The skipper Chamari Atapattu is the most experienced player of the side having the services of experienced spinners Inoka Ranaweera and Oshadee Ranasinghe while Nilakshi de Silva, Udeshika Probodhani, Harshitha Samarawickrama are the key players of the side. Galle wicket is more favourable for spinners and this ODI series most probably going to be a battle between Sri Lanka spinners and New Zealand batsmen
The second ODI between two teams will be held on 30th and third and final will be held on July 3 at same venue Galle while three T-20 games between two teams will be held on July 8, 10, 12 at P. Sara Oval Stadium. The only warm up T-20 game will be played on July 6 at CCC grounds.
Sri Lanka womens team from: Chamari Atapattu (Capt), Harshitha Samarawickrama, Vishmi Gunaratne, Anushka Sanjeewani, Hasini Perera , Nilakshi de Silva , Kaveesha Dilhari, Oshadee Ranasinghe , Sugandi Kumari, Inoka Ranaweera, Udeshika Prabidhani, Hansima Karunaratne, Inoshi Fernando, Kawya Kavindi, Imesha Dulani
New Zealand women’s team from: Sophie Devine (Capt ), Suzie Bates, Bernadine Bezuidenhout, Eden Carson, Isabella Gaze, Maddy Green, Brooke Halliday, Fran Jonas, Amelie Kerr, Leigh Kasperek, Rosemary Mair, Molly Penfold, Georgia Plimmer, Hannah Rowe, Lea Tahuhu.
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