Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: India captain Harmanpreet Kaur was impressed with her bowlers’ performance in the outing, praising Sneh Rana for her brilliant spell of (1-11) in the middle overs, restricting Sri Lanka Women to 128/9 in the second match of the five-match T20I series at the ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam on December 23.
Choosing to bowl first, India struck quickly and kept Sri Lanka from gaining any momentum. Sri Lanka improved slightly from their 121 in the first T20I. Kranti Gaud continued her good form by taking down Vishmi Gunaratne for 1 in the first over, caught off the follow-through. Although Arundathi Reddy let a few runs slip early on, the Indian bowlers applied enough pressure to keep Sri Lanka from breaking free. Sri Lanka managed to score 39 runs in the power play but faced difficulties, with skipper Chamari Athapaththu as their main contributor. Athapaththu hit two sixes in her 31 off 24 balls before falling to Sneh Rana, the only change in the lineup for the second T20I due to Deepti Sharma’s absence because of a fever.
“Yeah, really happy with the way we bowled today. The bowlers took the responsibility and restricted them. Really happy with how everyone in the bowling department took the responsibility. We know what Sneh can do. Deepti has been doing it for us,” said Harmanpreet after the match. Hasini Perera and Harshitha Samarawickrama played a crucial role in stabilising Sri Lanka’s innings after the early setbacks, rotating the strike well to take the score to 66 for 2 at the halfway mark. However, with the field spread in the middle overs, scoring became difficult.
Perera struggled to find the boundary and was eventually dismissed for 22 off 28 balls by Shree Charani in the 13th over, bringing an end to their 44-run partnership. Harshitha looked composed and batted with confidence, scoring 33 before being run out in the 17th over. Sri Lanka failed to maintain momentum at the death, losing wickets in quick succession. Shree Charani (2/23) and Vaishnavi Sharma (2/32) were the top bowlers, with Kranti Gaud (1/21) and Sneh Rana (1/11) each taking one wicket.
