Only medal so far for Sri Lanka in Asian Games by our women cricketers 

Sri Lanka women’s Cricket Captain Chamari Athapaththu batting against India in the final

•  Men face challenging tasks on poor-quality wickets

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

Today is the tenth day of the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China and Sri Lanka’s medal tally is only a Silver won by their women’s cricket team led by Chamari Athapaththu.

Chamari and her troopers made the nation proud by winning the first medal for her country at the ongoing Games. A gold medal was within their grasp when they restricted the strong Indian batting line-up to 116-7, but Sri Lanka faltered in their run chase and fell short by 19 runs and thus had to be content with a Silver.

“There are so many things to talk about in the final. I know we got them down to 116-7. That was a super effort but the thing about the Chinese wicket is, it was terrible,” said Sri Lanka Women’s Cricket Team Head Coach Rumesh Ratnayake.

“That 116 is like 175-180 on a good wicket but the mere fact that we got them out for that total, we should have done better than that. I personally feel that psychologically we were in a stronger position than them when we went into bat.”

“Chamari started off well, changing her arm with a six and a four. The deterioration of the wicket was so much that her plan was to get it done as fast as possible. The newer the ball the better for it to be done. But saying that it was a marvellous catch that dismissed her.”

“But my situation is not that. Okay Chamari was out, but I want the rest of the team to win matches, not only Chamari. That was the opportunity for the team especially when Hasini Perera was batting. We got 12 runs in four balls, two balls more and two singles could have been 14, but she went for a six instead of a tap and run and got out. That was my turning point in the ninth over. Her dismissal at that point was unnecessary. That was poor thinking and not smart cricket at all.” Ratnayake said the wicket was bad on all days and after the matches, the view of all the coaches was that the wickets were really bad.

“My concern is how the men will go and play on that wicket. They have four tracks for them to sustain for the next two weeks. It’s going to be a challenge,” said Ratnayake. “I won’t be surprised if you see very low scores. Saying that Nepal scored a record breaking 212-7, but whom did they play against – Mongolia!”

Sri Lanka men who are straight into the Quarterfinals will play their first match on 4 October.