The ultimate winners were Harmanpreet Kaur & Co., who defeated Chamaari Athapaththu’s Sri Lanka by 97 runs on Sunday, May 11. As they defeated South Africa and Sri Lanka to win a Tri-Nation series before of the much awaited Women’s ODI World Cup in September and October, the Indian squad had a campaign in Colombo that lifted their spirits.
India batted first and amassed a massive 342/7 thanks to a brilliant century from Smriti Mandhana (116), as well as helpful contributions from Jemimah Rodrigues (44), Harleen Deol (47), and Harmanpreet Kaur (41). Women in Blue’s defence saw Sneh Rana dominate with numbers of 4/38 as Sri Lanka was knocked out for 245 in reply.
Harmanpreet Kaur expressed her satisfaction with the batting display in the final during the post-match presentation ceremony. She did, however, highlight advancements in areas like bowling, fielding, and forming strong alliances. The Indian captain also praised the outstanding performances of Mandhana and Rana. The latter was named Player of the Series after finishing as the highest wicket-taker.
But Harmanpreet Kaur hoped that in the days ahead, the pacers’ recurrent injuries will end.
“I’m proud of the whole team because they played excellent cricket. I’m rather pleased with our performance today. However, there is constant progress in areas like bowling, fielding, and forming strong alliances. We need to address the issue of our medium pacers’ frequent injuries. That’s what the team is working on. However, we will make an effort to continue playing quality cricket. However, the manner in which the other hitters, save Smriti and myself, batted was a significant plus. Another significant plus was Sneh Rana’s bowling style. Although there are many good things to discuss, Harmanpreet Kaur stated that she just wanted to savour the present.
As the Sri Lankan bowlers kept their positions, Centurion Mandhana stated that she attempted to evaluate the situation. But the Indian hitters managed to score. The opening batsman emphasised that although the Indian bowlers have performed well, the pitches have been good for batting throughout the series.
“We usually organise our innings by evaluating the conditions first. They held their lines at first, but we eventually managed to score. Every wicket has been excellent for batting. Our bowlers performed well despite not being very good bowlers,” Mandhana remarked following the game.
Our fielding needs to be improved: Chamari Athapaththu
If Sri Lanka is to perform well at the World Cup, the fielding needs to be improved, according to skipper Chamari Athapaththu. She added that the lineup should include a couple power batters.
“I want to start by congratulating India. They did a great job today. It’s difficult to chase 300+, and although we put up a good fight, we missed some run-outs and dropped a few catches. Smriti was a fantastic batsman, but even our bowling unit had trouble in the middle overs. Throughout the competition, we lost run-out opportunities and dropped catches, so we need to get better at fielding. We must work on that because SLC is also attempting to hire new fielding coaches. We need some power hitters and we also need to get better at batting, but we have to get things done before the World Cup,” Athapaththu stated.
Rana, meanwhile, talked about the arduous job she had been doing behind the scenes in preparation for the series. She sounded assured that she would perform well at home in the upcoming World Cup.
“I’m thrilled to have made a contribution. I’m really appreciative since I worked really hard to get here after so many months. The strategy was straightforward: only use yorkers and pace-off deliveries. It worked out after a lot of work with the bowling instructor. [World Cup] Extremely confident, particularly in my team, who put in a lot of effort and performed admirably,” Rana said.
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