Sri Lanka Women cricketers in groundbreaking tour to Pakistan

Sri Lanka Women and Pakistan Women last played a bilateral ODI series in March 2018 in Dambulla

• 3-match ODI series scheduled ahead of ICC Women’s World Cup Qualifier

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

Sri Lanka Women cricketers will be breaking new ground when they undertake a three-match ODI tour to Pakistan later this month. It will be the first time that our Women cricketers will be playing a bilateral ODI series in Pakistan although the two nations have been meeting each other since 1998.

This tour is a morale-booster for the Lankan Women cricketers, who were without any international engagements prior to taking part in the ICC Women’s World Cup Qualifier in Zimbabwe from 25 November to 5 December.

The Sri Lanka Women’s team, which was to be selected yesterday, is due to leave for Pakistan on 15 October. The tour itinerary is awaited from the Pakistan Cricket Board. Sri Lanka Women’s cricketers will spend seven days of self-isolation before commencing the tour with a one-day practice match that will be followed by the three ODIs against Pakistan Women.

Sri Lanka Women have never toured Pakistan for a cricket tour. The only occasion that a Sri Lanka Women’s team had played in Pakistan was in 2005-06 when Pakistan hosted the Women’s Asia Cup in Karachi. Sri Lanka Women reached the final but lost to India Women.

Sri Lanka and Pakistan last played a bilateral ODI series in March 2018 in Dambulla where Pakistan Women emerged victorious with a 3-0 sweep. Sri Lanka Women’s last bilateral ODI series was in October 2019 in Australia where they lost 3-0 to the host nation.

“This was a sudden arrangement; it was not in our FTP. It’s a superb opportunity before the World Cup qualifiers to assess our strength,” said Sri Lanka Women’s Head Coach Hashan Tillakaratne, for whom this will be the first major assignment since being appointed to the post on 1 June.

“The last two months we have been working very hard towards improving our game. This is a superb benchmark to assess our present status and how good we are,” he said.

The Lanka Women cricketers’ squad of 23 players were in a bio-bubble at the P. Sara Oval till Wednesday, during which period they played five competitive matches to select the 17 players for the World Cup Qualifiers. They earlier underwent a training session in Dambulla.

In order to prepare the women cricketers for this all-important qualifying event, Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) tried to get the Pakistan Women cricketers down and send our Women cricketers to Bangladesh in November, but unfortunately both tours fell through, and SLC instead were in the process of organising an SLC Invitational 50-over tournament in October with four teams participating. However, with this latest development the tournament is unlikely to take place.

The Sri Lankan Women’s team will be returning from Pakistan on 29 October and flying to Zimbabwe on 15 November. Within that period, Tillakaratne said they were trying to play at least three limited-over practice matches against a boys Under-15 side.

Sri Lanka, Pakistan, West Indies, Bangladesh, Ireland, Thailand, Papua New Guinea, United States of America and Netherlands apart from hosts Zimbabwe are set to feature in the 10-team ICC Women’s World Cup Qualifier to decide the three qualifiers for the ICC Women’s World Cup 2022 in New Zealand from 4 March to 3 April. They will join five teams that have already qualified through the ICC Women’s Championship – Australia, England, India, South Africa and 

New Zealand.