Thatās all from our todayās coverage of 2nd WT20I between South Africa and Sri Lanka from Senwes Park, Potchefstroom. This is Gourav Samal signing off on behalf of my co-commentators Ayan Chatterjee and Saptak Sanyal and scorer/analyst Ashok Dayma. Stay tuned with us for all the cricketing updates around the world. Good night.
Chamari Athapaththu (Sri Lanka Women Captain)- "Actually I'm really happy. The way the two youngsters have participated in the game and did the chase was quite impressive. We are playing good cricket in the recent times and we had some blip in the last game. We dropped a few catches and need to improve that. We should improve in bowling too. I just want to stick to the plans and basics. I don't want to take much pressure on myself as there are a lot of youngsters in this team."
Nadine deKlerk (South AfricaWomen Captain): "Yes, look to start off, we did not have enough runs on the board. We lost our way in the middle and end and they batted really well towards the end. Last end overs did not work for us. Yes, Laura is a quality player. Losing her hurt us as she was in good form in WPL. But Bosch had a good game. All in all, we have some positives to take home. I think for the next game, we have to score more runs and bowl a bit better. We gave away too many runs as well in the form of extras. So, areas to work on. Meso was good on debut and hope she does well in the coming games."
Kavisha Dilhari (Player of the Match)- "I always wanted to perform with the ball and I got the execution right today. It was a good wicket for batting and I just saw the ball and then I went for hitting the shots."
Player of the Match- Kavisha Dilhari
Time for the post match presentations.
Vishmi Gunaratne becomes the youngest Sri Lankan to have a WT20I half-century. The previous youngest was her current team mate Harshitha Madavi.
20:26 IST and 16:56 Local Time | That's the end of the second innings and Sri Lanka Women clinch away a superb win by defeating South Africa Women by 7 wickets with seven more balls to spare. After winning the toss South Africa elected to bat first in the match and managed to score 137/8 in 20 overs. Anneke Bosch and Tazmin Brits got off to a good start before Tazmin lost her wicket in the 4th over at the score of 26. Bosch was then joined by Marizanne Kapp in the middle. The duo added 58 runs for the second wicket. Anneke went on to complete her half-century and score 50 of 32 balls, while Kapp managed to score 44 of 36 balls. After their wicket, the middle order never looked like taking the game ahead and fumbled regularly by losing regular wickets. Only skipper Nadine de Klerk managed to get two digit runs to her name and remained not out on 16* of 16 balls. For Sri Lanka, Achini Kulasuriya was the pick of the bowlers, who completed her quota with 2/26 from four overs. Inoshi Priyadarshini, skipper Chamari Athapaththu and Kavisha Dilhari picked one wicket each. While South Africa lost the other three wickets by run out. In reply, Vishmi Gunaratne and skipper Chamari Athapaththu opened the innings for Sri Lanka. The duo added 26 runs on the board before Tumi Sukhukhune picked the wicket of Athapaththu who scored 6 of 10 balls. Sri Lanka were then down to 62/3 in 11.2 overs as Harshitha Samarawickrama and Hasini Perera couldnāt last long on the crease. Gunaratne was then joined by Kavisha Dilhari in the middle. The duo took the game away from the home team by adding unbeaten 76 runs for the fourth wicket. Vishmi Gunaratne remained not out on 65* of 57 balls while Dilhari remained unbeaten on 45* of 28 balls and helped their team to chase the target with 7 wickets remaining. For South Africa Tumi Sekhukhune, Chloe Tryon and skipper Nadine de Klerk picked one wicket each but couldnāt stop the Sri Lankan batters from reaching the target.
The three match WT20I series between South Africa Women and Sri Lanka Women is now leveled at 1-1. Itās now down to the final match of the series which will be played on April 3, 2024.