Women’s cricket is all set to mark its debut at the Commonwealth Games on the 29th of July in Birmingham, England. The tournament will see 12 league stage games followed by 4 knockout games with the medal games set to be played on the 7th of August. The tournament will be played in the Twenty20 format and will feature 8 nations divided into two groups with India, Australia, Pakistan and Barbados in group A and England, New Zealand, South Africa and Sri Lanka in other, group B.
FIXTURE DETAILS
Sri Lanka placed in group B play their opening game against England on the 30th of July in the evening hours. Below are Team Sri Lanka’s fixtures against the opponents in the league and knockout rounds.
| DATE | OPPOSITION | TIME (SLST) | TIME (UK) | VENUE |
| 30-Jul-22 | England | 3:30 PM | 11:00 AM | Edgbaston |
| 02-Aug-22 | New Zealand | 10:30 PM | 6:00 PM | Edgbaston |
| 04-Aug-22 | South Africa | 3:30 PM | 11:00 AM | Edgbaston |
| DATE | MATCH | TIME (SAST) | TIME (UK) | VENUE |
| 06-Aug-22 | semi-final 1 | 3:30 PM | 11:00 AM | Edgbaston |
| 06-Aug-22 | semi-final 2 | 10:30 PM | 6:00 PM | Edgbaston |
| 07-Aug-22 | Bronze medal | 2:30 PM | 10:00 AM | Edgbaston |
| 07-Aug-22 | Gold medal match | 9:30 PM | 5:00 PM | Edgbaston |
SRI LANKA’S SQUAD FOR THE GAMES :
Chamari Athapaththu (c), Hasini Perera, Harshitha Samarawickrama, Vishmi Gunaratne, Malsha Shehani, Nilakshi de Silva, Kavisha Dilhari, Ama Kanchana, Achini Kulasuriya, Inoka Ranaweera, Udeshika Prabodhani, Sugandika Kumari, Rashmi de Silva, Oshadi Ranasinghe, Anushka Sanjeewani.
SQUAD NEWS
Sri Lanka have been misfiring with bat in hand and with the bowl have had few good outings and are lacking consistency. Sri Lanka’s overreliance on skipper, Chamari Athapaththu is starting to hurt them with her having a slight dip in form both with bat and ball in hand.
PLAYERS TO WATCH OUT FOR
Chamari Athapaththu
Skipper and opener, Chamari Athapaththu has been Sri Lanka’s finest and her style of play is the most suited to this format of play. Her form lately with the bat has been decent having hit 125 runs in three T20Is against India in June. She also was Sri Lanka’s leading wicket-taker and run-scorer at the qualifiers.
Vishmi Gunaratne
Teenager, Vishmi Gunaratne after promising outings is likely to continue opening alongside her skipper, Chamari Athapaththu which does allow her to settle in and play her natural game. Vishmi had a couple of good knocks of 35 against Malaysia and 26 against Kenya before her 45 came against India in Dambulla.
Rashmi Silva
Spinner, Rashmi Silva debuted in the ODI series against India but is yet to make her T20I debut. Her ODI debut saw her pick the wickets of Shafali Verma and Harleen Deol in the same over which has seemed enough for her ticket to Birmingham for the Commonwealth Games.
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