Team preview: A mountain to climb for the team from the Island Nation

 

Strengths:

Sri Lanka’s bowling attack is better than their batting line-up, though they have some big-hitters in their team as well. With their strong bowling attack, they will try to restrict their opponents to a below par score and keep the run-rate under control. So that, they could easily chase. Along with them, they have their experienced captain Chamari Athapaththu, who has the ability to snatch the game away from others.

 

Key Players:

Sri Lankan captain, Chamari Athapaththu will play an important role in her sides’ win. She can give a great start which can help them to win. In the recently concluded India series, she smashed 115 off 133 and guided her team to a comfortable win.

Along with her, all-rounder Shashikala Siriwardene too arguably is one of the key players of Sri Lanka. Her consistent contributions with both bat and ball can help her team to go a long way. Sri Lanka can depend on the vast experience of their right-arm medium pace bowler Sripali Weerakkody as well as big-hitter Nilakshi de Silva.

 

Areas of concern:

The biggest concern of Sri Lanka for this World T20 is their inconsistency in the batting line up. They need to be more consistent so that they can set a good total which the bowlers can defend as well as to chase them.

Along with this, they need to work on their fielding as well.

 

Youngster to Watch Out for:

The only youngster of Sri Lanka to watch out for in this World T20 is Kavisha Dilhari. Her stunning performance against India in both the ODI and T20I series helped her to be selected in the squad for the mega event.

 

Performance over the Last Editions:

Sri Lanka have not been able to make it past the group stages in each of the last five editions of the World T20. Having played 20 matches in all these five editions, they have managed to win only 6 matches so far. It will be interesting to see how this team will perform in this mega event.

Full fixtures here

 

Squad:

Chamari Athapaththu(c), Nilakshi de Silva, Kavisha Dilhari, Ama Kanchana, Sugandika Kumari, Eshani Lokusuriyage, Dilani Manodara, Yasoda Mendis, Hasini Perera, Udeshika Prabodhani, Inoshi Priyadharshani, Oshadi Ranasinghe, Shashikala Siriwardene, Rebeca Vandort, Sripali Weerakkody