Our batters must fire if we are to beat India, says skipper Chamari

Thursday, 23 June 2022 01:27 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Rival captains Chamari Athapaththu and Harmanpreet Kaur

For Sri Lanka to have any chance of beating India, the batters must fire was the view of the captain Chamari Athapaththu ahead of the three match Women’s T20I series starting at the Rangiri Dambulla Stadium today.

“If you take the Indian side there are about 6-7 players playing in the leagues around the world especially the WWBL Big Bash, the Hundred ball and IPL. They have huge experience compared to our players. Most important is how our batters perform. If they come good and get us totals of 250 or 260 in ODIs and 150 or 160 in T20Is we can give them a good contest,” said Chamari in a virtual pre-match press conference yesterday.

“If you take the bowling of both sides they look equal. It’s in the batting that India holds an advantage. They have batters who can score quick runs and they have the experience. If you take our batting line up we don’t have the experience and batters who can score fast. If we perform on the day we can beat any side. With Jhulan Goswami and Mithali Raj in the side we have beaten India the last time they were here, so it is important we play to the best of our ability in this contest.”

Goswami has been left out of the team and Mithali has retired and the Indian side has a few new faces in their line-up.

Sri Lanka are going into the series against India fresh from beating Pakistan in a WODI by 93 runs. The win came on the back of a brilliant century from Chamari who had failed in the previous five matches.

“We have a lot of young players for them to succeed. My contribution and my presence in the middle is important. If you take the bowling line up we have a lot of experienced hands. I am hoping to contribute 200 percent to the team’s success in the series against India,” said Chamari.

“In the series in Pakistan I could not give off my best performance because of tough conditions. It took me some time to adjust to the wickets, that’s why my best contribution came only in the final ODI.

“The matches took place in Karachi not on the main ground. They knew that our batters play well on the wicket with pace and bounce, especially me, so they prepared slow low wickets so we took a long time to adapt to the conditions. That’s why we lost the first five matches. However, we learnt a lot from those matches, especially how to play against spin.”

“In the series against India we have home advantage. We know how the ball will behave on the surfaces at Dambulla where there is a lot of cross wind. We know where it comes from and we hope to use them to our advantage. Playing against India it is important we use the conditions to our advantage. We came to Dambulla a few days ago and practiced. I hope the players have learnt from it and will adapt accordingly,” Chamari said. (ST)