Image: India Women vs Sri Lanka Women T20I Series / © X (Twitter)
With confidence building among players and more determined to win at least one game in this five-match tour, the focus now turns toward T20 World Cup preparation, as there are less than six months until the tournament.
Throughout the series, India has played exceptionally well and also had a fair bit of luck, winning all three tosses. They restricted Sri Lanka to less than 130 runs each time and reached their total with 5 overs and 7 wickets remaining each time. What this means for Sri Lanka is that they will have the chance to see how India’s middle order and lower order perform on Tuesday. However, it will be a monumental task for them to overcome Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma, who created India’s highest partnership for any wicket. This resulted in India’s highest T20I score ever. To date, India has only used 5 batters in the 2023 T20 World Cup.
Sri Lanka hopes to build on Hasini Perera’s quick start against India on Sunday, where she dismissed Renuka Singh and Arundhati Reddy in the opening overs, as well as Nilakshika Silva’s late runs, to continue to improve their batting.
Sri Lanka’s players will also look to take advantage of any missed opportunities from Indian players this series, as India has dropped five catches in games one and two in game four. This allows them to close the gap between them and Sri Lanka.
There is a lot of expectation on Athapaththu’s shoulders every time Sri Lanka comes to bat, and it was nice to see Hasini Perera step up in the first partnership with her captain on Sunday. It was with her ability to hit boundaries that Hasini helped get the score up to 52 for 0 after only four overs. Having played virtually 90 T20Is, this last match of the series represents an ideal opportunity for Hasini to reach her first T20I fifty and solidify people’s confidence in her abilities, leading into the T20 World Cup.
Shafali Verma has only been dismissed two times in this series, which is quite remarkable since she has amassed a total of 236 runs at an amazing strike rate of 185.82. In fact, the only player with a better strike rate in this series is Jemimah Rodrigues’ 140.54. Shafali has attacked every type of bowling that Sri Lanka has bowled to her and will continue to do so. She is the only player in the entire tournament to score three half-centuries in a row. Shafali’s onslaught could easily be repeated in the fifth T20I match, where India will face Sri Lanka.