Live Score

SL-W won by 10 runs

2:32 AM IST, 5:02 PM Local Time: Sri Lanka Women have registered a victory by 10 runs in this game. They take a 1-0 lead in this three-match series. West Indies Women are all out for 230 in 49.4 overs. For a moment, it seemed that West Indies would pull off this chase but the Sri Lankan spinners turned the game around.

After being put in to bat first, Sri Lanka constructed their innings with patience and control. The visitors were steady rather than explosive, building partnerships through the middle overs to ensure a strong platform for a late flourish.

Hasini Perera laid the foundation with a composed 61 off 86 deliveries, anchoring the innings after an early watchful start. Captain Chamari Athapaththu contributed 27, while the innings was given further solidity by Harshitha Samarawickrama, who crafted a patient 66 from 105 balls.

Their ability to rotate strike and absorb pressure ensured Sri Lanka never lost control despite not accelerating dramatically.

Late contributions down the order carried the visitors to 240 for 6 in their allotted 50 overs — a total that looked competitive on a surface offering some assistance to the bowlers.

Chasing 241, West Indies Women required a steady start, but Sri Lanka’s bowlers struck at key intervals to disrupt momentum. Early wickets prevented the home side from settling, and the required run rate gradually crept upward. At one moment, the side was struggling at 80/5.

Then, veteran batter Stafanie Taylor attempted to anchor the innings, showing composure in the middle overs as wickets fell around her. She, along with Jannillea Glasgow, resurrected the West Indian innings and took the game deep. The pair stitched an 89-run partnership for the sixth wicket.

Taylor registered her 42nd WODI half-century but then got dismissed for 66 off 83 balls. Glasgow soon followed her and got out for 50 off 67 balls. Aaliyah Alleyne remained unbeaten at 24 (29) but the rest of the Windies batters fell cheaply and the side lost by 10 runs.

Spinner Inoka Ranaweera impressed the most and took 4 wickets while Kavisha Dilhari picked 3 scalps.

Time for the post-match presentation.

Inoka Ranaweera (Player of the Match): "(On bowling in different phases) During the first practice session here, I got used to the pitches and knew how to bowl on these pitches and that helped me the most today.

(Most important wicket?) Henry (chuckles). (On bowling in the powerplay) I generally do not bowl in the powerplay and never open the bowlling. Usually I come after the powerplay but today I had to bowl a couple of overs during the powerplay."

Hayley Matthews (West Indies Captain): "(On the target) I probably would have said 10–15 runs over what we would have wanted. I think coming into the day and looking at the wicket, I would have probably been happy to keep them somewhere under 220. And I think even as we went through our innings with the total to go, we were looking to keep them somewhere under 220. But yeah, with that being said, I still think 240 was definitely a chaseable total.

(On fielding) Yeah, I feel like we weren’t able to build pressure and take wickets at regular intervals. And it really gave their batters the opportunity to get settled at the crease and, I guess, keep wickets in hand so that they could push on later.

(On batting) Yeah, probably just not enough runs from the top order. Taylor did a really good job to put up her hand and play the innings that she did. Obviously, good to see her back batting like she did today. But yeah, probably not too many runs from the other people in the top six, which is somewhere we definitely need to look at. And I think probably some of the ways we got out as well, we could address. With the situation of the game, it showed that once we were able to build a partnership — I think Glasgow came and showed that once she started building a partnership with Taylor — that it made things a lot easier.

(On positives to take forward) Yeah, like I said, a massive positive that we could take out is the fact that we were able to get to the 230-run mark without a lot of our senior batters really stepping up. I think in the past, when some of our senior batters didn’t step up, we would have seen us crumble to probably 150 or 160. So I think it was quite heartening today that the batters put their hands up."

Chamari Athapaththu (Sri Lanka Women Captain): "(How were the nerves at the end?) Exactly you know the way West Indies chased, it became a very close game. Stafanie batted really good. The newcomer left hand batter Glasgow was also good. I think the tail enders also tried to finish on a high but the end result is in our favour. We have a few senior bowlers and executed the plans at the right time.

(Was 240 enough?) I do not think. I feel 270 would have been a better score. West Indies have good power hitters. We were short by 30 runs.

(On Hasini Perera and Harshitha Samarawickrama) They did well according to the plan. It was not easy to bat during the morning conditions. They adopted to the situation and played their game.

(How much relief it is to see the others scoring runs) Feels good as a captain. For the last 10 years, the batting depended on my shoulders. But now we have good cricketers. Harshitha, Hasini, Vishmi Gunaratne and Kavisha Dilhari are batting really good. These are the positives from our side.

(Did the conditions play into your favour) I think the conditions were good for the spinners. It was helpful for the pacers too if they can alter the pace.

(On the scope of improvements) We need to improve our batting and power hitting. I feel we need to do a bit better in fielding. Death bowling is okay but the powerplay bowling is not good enough."

Sri Lanka Women have registered a 10-run victory and they take a 1-0 lead in this three-match series. The second WODI will be held on Sunday.

This is Mohammad Anab signing off on behalf of my co-commentator Saptak Sanyal and our scorer/analyst Ghanendra Singh Thakur. Cheers.