Chamari Athapaththu will depart the WPL in the middle to travel to Sri Lanka for a tour of New Zealand.

The Women’s Premier League (WPL) will deal UP Warriorz (UP-W) a second serious blow when Chamari Athapaththu, an all-rounder from Sri Lanka, is scheduled to return halfway because of previous international obligations.

Athapaththu has confirmed that he will be part of the Sri Lankan team for the next white-ball tour of New Zealand, which is scheduled to start in Napier on March 4. Earlier, UP-W suffered yet another setback when Alyssa Healy, their full-time captain, was sidelined by an injury.

ESPNcricinfo states that Chamari Athapaththu is anticipated to be available until February 26 and might play in four more tournament games before leaving. Before traveling to Lucknow for their last three league games, UP-W will play the Mumbai Indians in another test on February 26 in Bengaluru. The team has only played one game thus far, losing to the Gujarat Giants, in which Chamari Athapaththu was left out of the starting lineup.

The team from Sri Lanka, which is scheduled to depart for New Zealand on February 22, has chosen Chamari Athapaththu as its captain.

There are three ODIs and three T20Is in the series. The only Kiwi player participating in the WPL this season, Amelia Kerr, is an all-rounder from New Zealand. She has chosen to remain with the Mumbai Indians (MI) for the duration of the competition, even if MI advances to the knockout stages. In the event that MI advances to the March 15 final, Kerr is probably going to miss New Zealand’s opening two Twenty20 Internationals in Christchurch on March 14 and 16.

In the realm of cricket, schedule conflicts are not new because this has become a typical occurrence. Both England’s Heather Knight (RCB-W) and Lauren Bell (UP-W) opted for national duty over the WPL in 2024. Fortunately, Chamari Athapaththu was later brought in by UP-W to replace Bell. The England Cricket Board (ECB) and other organizations have since pledged to abstain from international matches during the WPL competition. The Indian tournament will notably shift to a January–February timeslot starting in 2026. In order to avoid such disputes, other leagues, such as the WBBL (November) and The Hundred (August), have also guaranteed exclusive slots through 2029.