In order to take advantage of the wet conditions, Indian captain Harmanpreet Kaur chose to bowl first after winning the toss.
Sri Lanka Women (SL-W), India Women (IND-W), and South Africa Women (SA-W) began their ODI tri-series on Sunday, April 27 at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo with a match between SL-W and IND-W. Rain caused a two-hour delay in the start of play, and the game was shortened to 39 overs per side.
Each of the two teams brought in two rookies. While pacer Kashvee Gautam and spinner Shree Charani won their first caps in the format for India, seamer Malki Madara and batsman Piumi Badalge received theirs for the home team.
Gautam and Arundhati Reddy, two Indian seamers, got off to a strong start by bowling sparingly during the powerplay. In an attempt to increase the ante, SL-W skipper Chamari Athapaththu (7 off 18) was dismissed in the eighth over, leaving the score at 23/1. Hasini Perera (30 off 46) and Harshitha Samarawickrama (14 off 24) shared 31 runs before Sneh Rana trapped the former leg before.
As the Indian spinners began to tighten their hold on the game, the Lankan Lionesses continued to lose wickets at regular intervals. With the help of wicketkeeper-batter Anushka Sanjeewani (22 off 39) and Kavisha Dilhari (25 off 26), SL-W managed to reach a decent score of 147 from 38.1 overs. India’s spinners claimed seven of the ten wickets that fell. The best bowler was Rana (3/31); the other wicket-takers were Reddy (1/26), Deepti Sharma (2/22), and Charani (2/26).
Indian responded by launching a vigorous pursuit.
Pratika Rawal and opener Smriti Mandhana (43 off 46) combined for 54 runs in 59 deliveries before Inoka Ranaweera caught and bowled the former.
With six fours in her innings, Mandhana was the more aggressive of the two. After Harleen Deol joined Rawal, the two of them proceeded to conduct their business with little risk-taking.
The SL-W bowlers were unable to take any wickets after that, demonstrating their inefficiency against them. Harleen finished at 48* off 71 balls, while Rawal scored an undefeated 50 off 62 balls. With 9.2 overs left and nine wickets in hand, India won the match with relative ease.
Ranaweera was the only player to take a wicket for the home team. All bowlers recorded economy rates of more above four runs per over, with the exception of newcomer Badalge.
On Tuesday, April 29, IND-W will play SA-W in the second match of the tri-series.
India
