Chamari unhappy with Lanka’s batting, pleased with bowling unit

Sri Lanka Women’s captain Chamari Athapaththu (left) and Player of the Match Harshitha Samarawickrama at the media conference

Sri Lanka Women team cricket captain Chamari Athapaththu expressed dissatisfaction at the performance of her batters in their second match of the ongoing Women’s Asia Cup at Bangladesh where they made only 109-9 in 20 overs against a non-Test playing country UAE.

“The first match against India we lost but we got a lot of positives out of it. We all know that India are the favourites in this tournament and in the last two weeks they have been playing really good cricket in England. But today’s (Sunday) game (v UAE) I am a little bit worried about our batting,” said Chamari at the post-match press conference.

“Although we won, I am not really happy about our batting performance. Especially as a top cricket nation we struggled a lot. We have to improve in that area. As a bowling unit we did really well.”

“After the rain we had a discussion with the coaching staff. We have an experienced bowling unit and we didn’t feel the pressure because we stuck to our plans. We bowled in the right areas and we built the pressure for the UAE batters.”

Sri Lanka won the contest by 11 runs under the D/L method restricting UAE to 54-7 chasing a target of 66 in 11 overs.

“The wicket is a bit low, not much bounce and a little bit of turn. The balls kept low that’s why we struggled a lot because we have been playing on some good tracks. I am the senior and experienced batter in the side yesterday (Saturday) and today (Sunday) I got out early. It happens in cricket. I try to do my best to score every day but sometimes it doesn’t seem to work,” said Chamari.

“As a batter you have to adjust to every wicket. I am normally really good on a bouncy track, this track was a bit low and slow and I struggled. But as a senior batter I have to adjust to the wickets. Next week we have some crucial games coming up, I will have to improve in that area and come back stronger.”

Sri Lanka’s next match is against Thailand today and Chamari is optimistic that her team will pick themselves up and come good in the remaining games.

“When the Sri Lanka men’s team won the Asia Cup they were not the favourites, but after a few games they became a favourite. They also lost their first game against Afghanistan and we lost against India. So hopefully we can play good cricket and come back. Every game is crucial for us. We are looking at one game at a time.”