Athapaththu All-round performance help Sri Lanka clinch ODI series

Sri Lanka Women completed their first bilateral ODI series win over Pakistan Women in 24 years, winning the third game convincingly to take the series 2-1. Although the target proved to be much easier for the series decider on Tuesday (July 28), Sri Lanka's top order cruised to an eight-wicket victory for the second time in three days. Put in to bat, Pakistan suffered a triple blow in the second over itself. Chetana Vimukthi, playing just her fifth ODI, tore through the top order. Two overs in, Pakistan were down to 10/3. Gull Feroza, Player of the Match in the first game, then started a slow but assured rebuilding passage alongside Muneeba Ali. They put on 68 runs together, before Chamari Athapaththu broke the stand, snaring Feroza for the first of her three wickets. Najiha Alvi then stitched together another brief resistance with Muneeba, but the latter’s dismissal kicked off a second collapse. From 110/4, they tumbled to 146/7. If it weren’t for captain Fatima Sana’s 41, they could have been left with a much smaller total. With little company around, she pushed them closer to 200, but Athapaththu and Kavisha Dilhari cleaned up the rest by the 40th over. The hosts were left with 188 to seal the series. Vishmi Gunaratne, their centurion from the previous game, fell in the seventh over after putting on a steady opening stand with a free-flowing Athapaththu. The Sri Lanka captain had gone after Tasmia Rubab the previous over, hitting three fours and a six. The scoring rate dipped after Gunaratne got out, but Pakistan did not find another breakthrough until the 16th over. By then, Athapaththu had completed her 30th fifty-plus score in ODIs, and half the required runs had been shaved off. Harshitha Samarawickrama, the other centurion from the second ODI, then put on an undefeated stand with Hasini Perera, who continues to have a great year with the bat. She reached her first fifty last year, and she has three this year, after not scoring one in her first nine ODI seasons. The chase was completed with 76 balls to spare, giving Sri Lanka their first bilateral series win over the opponents since 2002, and breaking a sequence of four series wins for Pakistan. Athapaththu was declared the Player of the Match for her all-round showing, while Samarawickrama finished with the Player of the Series award, scoring 173 runs while being dismissed only once in three games. The T20I series begins on July 31, in Dambulla.