Windies steamroll Sri Lanka
True to the headline, the Carribean ladies ran over Sri Lanka as the latter just collapsed as a pack of cards. The contrast in the batting approach and abilities was evident right from the power play overs till the end. The defending champions enjoyed a dominating victory by a huge margin of 83 runs.
As Windies skipper, Stephanie Taylor rightly said “We did come to the party today”,the openers went haywire in the batting power play by scoring 72 runs without losing a wicket. Hayley Mathews went on to score her fourth T20I fifty of mere twenty five deliveries. Dottin soon followed her partner to the dug out one short of a well deserved fifty. Taylor ensured that the start didn’t get wasted as she made a blistering 41 off 25 deliveries as the Windies posted a mammoth 187 in their 20 overs.
It was a day to forget for the Sri Lankan bowlers . The Lankan women had to bat out of their skins to get closer to the total. The pressure of chasing a huge score wasn’t handled too well as only three of their top order batters managed to touch the double figure mark. Chamari Athapattu made a 44 from 35 deliveries which didn’t help the cause.
Only two other batters Hasini Peters and Nilakshi De Silva managed to get to double figures.
Hayley Mathews followed her batting heroics with a three wicket haul to dismantle the Lankan middle order in what turned out to be a one sided encounter.Sri Lanka limped past the 100 run mark which was the sole consolation from this one sided encounter.By virtue of this win, the Windies women marched their way to the semis.
Scores in Brief: West Indies 187/5 in 20 overs ( Hayley Mathews 62, Deandra Dottin 49, Stephanie Taylor 41 ) beat Sri Lanka 104 in 17.4 overs (Chamari Athapattu 44; Hayley Mathews 3-16) by 83 runs.
