Lankan women off to New Zealand
In preparation for Sri Lanka women cricketers New Zealand tour Sri Lanka Cricket had selected a pool of twenty players of which the finals team will be picked for the tour. Sri Lanka is scheduled to play five One Day Internationals and three T20 matches in the Kiwi tour starting from October 27 to November 23, 2015.
Action at the recently concluded Windies-Sri Lanka series
In the last two series played against Pakistan in Dubai and West Indies in Sri Lanka the Lankan lasses won both the T20s and lost the ODIs. In this tour the Lankans will have to put extra efforts to tame the high riding Kiwi women. It was noticed that the main weakness shown in the last two series against the Paks and the Windies was in the batting department and that will be the main area of concern of the coach.
Openers Chamari Attapattu and Prasadini Weerakkody will have a big task in giving the Lankans a good start on the grassy seaming wickets. Batting will heavily depend on skipper Sashikala Siriwardene, Dilani Manodara, Nipuni Hansika and youngster Hasini Perera. The selectors had added two more new faces to add muscle to the batting line in Roshini Perera and Kushanthi Liyanage both from the Sri Lanka Army.
The selectors had made a good move in including five medium pacies in the pool to suit the Kiwi wickets. Eshani Lokusuriya, Ama Kanchana, Udeshika Prabodini, Sripali Weerakkody and Nilakshi Silva as pacies will have a tough job in their hands to catch the eyes of the selectors when it comes to final selections.
Skipper Shashikala will lead the spin attack with her off spinners and will have the support from Maduri Samuddika (Off spin) and left arm spinners Inoka Ranaweera and Suganthika Kumari. Sri Lanka team is scheduled to leave the island on October 27 accompanied by Indrani Ariyalatha as Manager and Lanka Silva as Coach.
The Pool:
Sashikala Siriwardene, Chamari Attapattu, Prasadini Weerakkody, Dilani Manodara, Eshani Lokusuriya, Inoka Ranaweera, Ama Kanchana, Suganthika Kumari, Maduri Samuddika, Nipuni Hansika, Udeshika Prabodini, Oshadi Ranasinghe, Lasanthi Madushani, Sripali Weerakkody, Hansini Perera, Roshini Perera, Anushka Sanjeewani, Nilakshi Silva, Kushanthi Liyanage and Chamari Polgampola.