Windies Women after ICC championship points in face-off against Sri Lanka Women

Two of the world’s top women’s all-rounders will come face-to-face when West Indies Women and hosts Sri Lanka Women open their six-match, white ball series on Saturday.

West Indies captain Hayley Matthews, the current No. 1 women’s all-rounder in the world, will confront her opposite Chamari Athapaththu, the current No. 5 and ICC Player-of-the-Month for May, when the two sides meet in the first of three ICC Women’s Championship One-day Internationals at the Galle International Stadium.

The Caribbean side are riding high after their highly successful tour of Pakistan, where they swept a similar series of three ICC Women’s Championship ODIs against the hosts in April, about the same time that the Asian side played to a 1-1 tie in a three-match series on their tour of South Africa.

Both West Indies Women and Sri Lanka Women are tied on 14 points in the 10-team ICC Women’s Championship table, but Matthews and her side have played 15 matches, three less than Athapaththu and hers.

The series will be crucial to the two sides as the ODIs will form part of the ICC Women’s Championship, which results in direct qualification for the ICC Women’s ODI World Cup next year in India.

Matthews, the ICC Women’s T20I Player-of-the-Year for 2023, underlined her status as one of the leading all-rounders in the world during the tour of Pakistan and earned the ICC Player-of-the-Month award for April.

She has been in excellent form with both bat and ball in the current cycle, with her 632 runs at an average of 52.66 putting her sixth on the scoring chart, and her 22 wickets at 18 apiece putting her in the top 10 bowlers.

Athapaththu was also in contention for the Player-of-the-Month award in April after a successful tour of South Africa, but she finally won the accolade after helping the Sri Lankans become the second team to qualify for the 2024 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup in Bangladesh last month.

She has scored 888 runs in the Women’s Championship ODIs at 68.30 – including a career best 195 not out against the South Africans – while she has bagged only six wickets with her off-spin which is not really her strong suit.

These are two evenly matched teams, and the two captains will require others in their squad to step up and ease the burdens for their sides to have success in this series, specifically in the batting, where both have been found wanting in the past.

The last time West Indies Women and Sri Lanka Women locked horns in a bilateral series was seven years ago when the Caribbean side swept their opponents across both T20Is and ODIs in a home series.

West Indies Women have the edge over Sri Lanka Women in the ODI format, but it is close – the Caribbean side won 18 matches and the Sri Lankans, 14.

Squads:

SRI LANKA WOMEN (from): Chamari Athapaththu (captain), Nilakshi De Silva, Kavisha Dilhari, Vishmi Gunaratne, Hansima Karunaratne, Kawya Kavindi, Achini Kulasuriya, Sugandika Kumari, Sachini Nisansala, Hasini Perera, Udeshika Prabodhani, Inoshi Priyadharshani, Oshadi Ranasinghe, Inoka Ranaweera, Harshitha Samarawickrama, Anushka Sanjeewani.

WEST INDIES WOMEN (from): Hayley Matthews (captain), Shemaine Campbelle (vice-captain), Aaliyah Alleyne, Shamilia Connell, Afy Fletcher, Cherry Ann Fraser, Shabika Gajnabi, Chinelle Henry, Zaida James, Qiana Joseph, Chedean Nation, Karishma Ramharack, Stafanie Taylor, Rashada Williams, Kate Wilmot.

(CMC)