Englishwomen crush Lankan lasses by 7 wickets
England Women thrashed Sri Lanka Women by 7 wickets in the first of the three One Day Internationals in Durham on Saturday.
Chasing a moderate target of 107, the Englishwomen reached home after losing three wickets, with 32 overs remaining from their allotted number of overs.
Openers Emma Lamb and Tammy Beaumont raced towards the target with a healthy run-rate, but Oshadi Ranasinghe struck in the first delivery of the 11th over to send Lamb back to the dressing room. By then she had struck 27 off 36 deliveries with three fours, and England had reached 61 runs.
Beaumont departed three overs later, falling to Inoka Ranaweera for 32, which came off just 31 deliveries inclusive of five boundaries, as skipper Heather Knight made a run-a-ball 22 to lead her side towards a comfortable victory.
Earlier debutants Mahika Gaur and Lauren Filer and Sarah Glenn claimed three wickets apiece as England Women set themselves an easy target of 107 runs. Put into bat first, Sri Lanka women were made to struggle as they managed to chip in only 106 runs, with nearly 20 overs left, with top order batter Harshitha Samarawickrama carrying her good form from the ended T20s.
The southpaw stayed on to top score 35 runs after facing 44 deliveries, as the remaining batters fell apart in front of a decent bowling attack from England.
Sri Lanka lost wickets regularly, as they lost skipper Chamari Athapaththu and fellow opener Anushka Sanjeewani at 26, until Samarawickrama came in and made a gallant attempt to steady the innings. But she ran out of potential partners as Sri Lanka were reeling down at 6-78 before the 20th over.
Eventually Samarawickrama’s heroics came to an end 17 deliveries later at 95, when she slightly nicked a fuller off Alice Capsey to wicketkeeper Amy Jones, who claimed five caught-behinds. Initially the umpire turned down the appeal, but the referral confirmed that the ball brushing Samarawickrama’s bat on the way to Jones’ safe hands.
The only other batters to reach double figures were skipper Athapaththu and Hasini Perera, who made 10 runs each, while the rest failed to impress.
England used five bowlers as leg-spinner Glenn and debutants – left-arm pacie Gaur and right-arm pacie Filer, who sat on a hat-trick, claimed three wickets each after bowling effectively. Glenn stood out of the rest with figures of 8-1-20-3, while Capsey claimed a scalp, that of top scorer Samarawickrama.
| Scores | |
| Sri Lanka Women 106 all out (30.2) (Harshitha Samarawickrama 35, Chamari Athapaththu 10, Hasini Perera 10, Sarah Glenn 3/20, Mahika Gaur 3/26, Lauren Filer 3/27) England Women 107 for 3 wickets (18) (Tammy Beaumont 32, Emma Lamb 27, Heather Knight 22) |