Women’s T20 World Cup: SL’s past coach presently with Bangladesh knows SL’s “secrets” – Chamari

Sri Lanka will be taking on Bangladesh, coached by SL's women's ex-coach Hashan Thillakarathne, knowing all the secrets on Sunday’s ICC Women’s World T20, SL skipper Chamari Athapaththu said.

That will also mark, interestingly and coincidentally, a clash between two sides having Lankans as their coaches.

The Sri Lankan team was taken over by the newly-appointed Rumesh Ratnayake, in his debut in the women’s set-up.

His predecessor, Hashan Thillakarathne, early this year, quit coaching his home team and accepted the offer with the Bangladeshis.

“Definitely, Bangladesh is really good side. Another thing is our ex-national coach worked on Bangladesh team. So, he knows what the secrets in our side are. But yeah, we stick to our plans. And normally we all know Bangladesh have good spin line-up. But in the Asia Cup, we played Bangladesh in Bangladesh and beat them in their home conditions,” she told reporters on the eve of the match.

She also said she will be banking on her batters.

“These conditions are really good for the batters. We have good batters in my side. So, I am not underestimating Bangladesh team, but we have good batting line up. So, tomorrow’s game is very crucial for both sides. So, we stick with our plans. We have several plans for their batters and the bowlers.”

Though Athapaththu and co., are after still-fresh subsequent to scripting a famous win on Friday, the Lankan ladies are not taking anything for granted.

“Yeah, I just told them one game is finished. We have to focus on the next game, we stick to our plans for next game. Bangladesh team also a really good team, they have good players. So we never underestimate Bangladesh. We focus on our skills and we back our skills, we stick with our plans for tomorrow game. We have good plans. I know we have a good bowling line up and we want to improve our batting a little bit. So we focus on tomorrow game,” she explained.

Bangladesh, on the other end, would be wanting to avenge their Asia Cup loss.