The latest two series in the third round of the ICC Women’s Championship delivered closely fought games and propelled West Indies out of the bottom half of the table as the teams test their competitive edge with the ICC Women’s World Twenty20 2018 less than 50 days away.
Reigning World T20 champions West Indies drew their three-match series at home to South Africa 1-1 while India defeated Sri Lanka 2-1 in an away series of the eight-team tournament, which sees sides compete for four direct qualifying spots in the ICC Women’s World Cup 2021 in New Zealand.
The results mean the West Indies have moved up one place to fourth position on the points table led by New Zealand. The defending ICC Women’s World Twenty20 champions are on nine points while South Africa are not far behind with seven points and in seventh position. India are in sixth position with eight points while Sri Lanka have drawn their first two points with a victory in the last match of the series. All four teams have played nine matches each so far.
In Sri Lanka, India’s 10-match victory run against the home side was brought to an end in the final encounter of the series by captain Chamari Atapattu’s match-winning century. The hard-hitting batter, whose amazing 178 not out against Australia in last year’s World Cup is acclaimed as one of the great all time knocks in the women’s game, eclipsed a century by rival captain Mithali Raj earlier in the day.
Raj had scored 125 not out, but Athapaththu’s 115 helped the side make it with just one ball to spare. The second match of the series too was close as India won by seven runs after notching an impressive nine-wicket victory in the opener.
Sri Lanka captain Chamari Atapattu: “We’re a bit disappointed that we did not win the series, despite coming very closer in the second game, However, we are taking a lot of confidence out of this series, since, there is clear indication of a turnaround of our team’s performances, especially under our new coach Mr. Harsha De Silva. Between the two teams, we did not see much of a difference. We won the third game and lost the second game very narrowly.
“We are looking forward to do well in the T20 series, and then move on and further capitalize on what we have achieved in this ODI series, against a very strong Indian team. We had some good outcomes – we are once again working as a team, every individual has started to understand their role and our confidence levels have gone up.”
India captain Mithali Raj: “We won the series but would have ideally liked a 3-0 score-line to garner maximum points since we had not lost to them in an ODI for five years. I thought we were close to doing that but Chamari produced a fine innings to take the final game away from us. It was a competitive match to cap the series and could have gone either way.”
0 comments:
Post a Comment