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Sri Lanka stun England again to clinch historic series win
Sri Lanka Women sealed their first series win over England in any format with a second successive shock victory. England failed to peel themselves off the canvas four days after their maiden T20I defeat to Sri Lanka, who bowled them out inside 20 overs for the second match in a row to take the series 2-1 in Derby.
Bundled out for just 104 in 18 overs at Chelmsford on Saturday, a combination of excellent bowling from Sri Lanka offspinner Kavisha Dilhari, seamer Udeshika Prabodhani and none other than their in-form captain Chamari Athapaththu – along with some soft dismissals – led to England’s downfall on this occasion, all out for 116 after 19 overs.
Then Athapaththu produced a signature display of power-hitting to break the back of the run chase. Despite falling just shy of her second successive half-century, she did enough to lead her side to victory by seven wickets with 18 balls to spare and deliver England’s first bilateral T20I series defeat to a side other than Australia since 2010. The result will also give her side a significant confidence boost ahead of the three-match ODI series between these sides starting in Durham on Saturday.
Calamitous start for England
The hosts were off to a shocker when Danni Wyatt spooned the first ball of the match, from Inoshi Priyadharshani straight to Hasini Perera at cover. Their woes deepened when fellow opener Maia Bouchier flicked Prabodhani to square leg and turned for a second run, changing her mind about a quarter of the way back down the pitch and turning round with her back to Alice Capsey.
By that stage, Capsey was steaming back for two, and kept going as Prabhodhani transferred the throw from the outfield for wicketkeeper Anushka Sanjeewani to whip off the bails with both batters at the same end, Capsey shaking her head in disbelief before trudging off with her side 11 for 2.
Back-to-back fours from Bouchier off Athapaththu in the next over, advancing to drive wide of mid-off and swinging away through square leg, helped England recover to 41 for 2 but no sooner had she cut Prabodhani through backward point for her fourth boundary, Bouchier picked out Dilhari just inside the rope at long-on to make it 41 for 3 at the end of the Powerplay.
As it turned out, Bouchier’s 23 off 18 balls remained England’s highest individual score. By the time Dilhari nailed Heather Knight on the pad as she tried to reverse-sweep an offbreak which kept low, the home side were 70 for 4 at the halfway point of their innings and faced a huge task to give their bowlers something to defend.
(A yorker from Udeshika Prabodhani knocked over Danielle Gibson)
Athapaththu at it again
Athapaththu, the star of Sri Lanka’s maiden T20I victory over England in the second match with her 55 off 31 and 1 for 11, tempted Amy Jones into a drive but deceived her in the air for Sanjeewani to pull off the stumping. That left two relatively inexperienced batters in the middle in Freya Kemp and Dani Gibson with just 72 runs on the board and five wickets down.
That became six when Kemp skied Dilhari straight down the ground and into the hands of Nilakshi de Silva, running round from long-on, Dilhari having set her up nicely with a run of three dot balls.
When Charlie Dean had her stumps rearranged by Inoka Ranaweera, Sarah Glenn strode out to hearty applause from her hometown crowd. She offered Ranaweera a chance at an extremely tough return catch that flew through the bowler’s hands three balls later. Gibson did all she could with some powerful hitting and excellent placement to reach 21 off 15 until she edged a gem of a yorker from Prabodhani onto her stumps.
Glenn managed to overturn her lbw dismissal off Athapaththu when she was struck on the pad while sweeping, replays showing the ball was going down the leg sided. But Athapaththu had the last word with two wickets in as many balls, Kate Cross stumped and Mahika Gaur pinned in line with middle stump.
(Harshitha Samarawickrama wheels past a cautious Kate Cross in celebration)
Faint hopes dashed
That was, of course, just the start for Athapaththu, who then commanded Sri Lanka’s pursuit with authority and flair. She powered Cross’s second ball – the eighth of the innings – over backward square leg for six and despatched Gaur to the same region for another maximum in the next over to signal her intent. Two off-side fours in three balls off Dean took her side to the end of the Powerplay on 58 without loss.
It was Dean who took the catch running round to her right from deep midwicket off Capsey to remove the threat of Athapaththu, who had reached 44 off 28, and that gave England a lift. Sanjeewani had been the perfect support act for Athapaththu during their opening stand of 65 but then Glenn drew her in with a flighted delivery outside off stump and Capsey swallowed the catch at mid-off.
England’s faint hopes took a hit when Cross had her lbw dismissal of Vishmi Gunaratne overturned when ball-tracking projected it was going down the leg side and even though Glenn removed Gunaratne lbw a short time later, the tourists were too far gone towards a landmark win.
The aid group Doctors Without Borders has reported recovering 11 bodies and rescuing dozens of people off the coast of Libya as it criticised the migration policies of the North African country and European countries.
In a statement on Friday, the group, known by its French initials MSF, said its Geo Barents rescue vessel managed to recover the bodies following a search operation lasting more than nine hours after being alerted by German nongovernmental organisation Sea-Watch, which also rescues refugees and migrants.
“As we cannot determine the reason behind this tragedy, we know that people will continue to take dangerous routes in a desperate attempt to reach safety, and Europe must find safe and legal pathways for them,” MSF said in a post on X. “This catastrophe must end!”
Sea-Watch said it is unclear whether the bodies were victims of a previously unknown shipwreck, adding that they tried to contact Libya’s coastguard to go and retrieve the dead, but received no reply.
“The so-called Libyan coastguard – financed by the EU – ignored our call demanding that the bodies be recovered,” the group said.
Thousands of people trying to head from Africa to Europe use Libya as a departing point, with the Italian island of Lampedusa the nearest European destination as they undertake the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean to escape war, poverty and persecution.
Italy, which wants to put a stop to the migration stream, has said Libya and neighbouring Tunisia must do more to stop people from going to sea. It has also clamped down on the operation of the rescue ships, arguing that they encourage people to head to Europe, a charge that is denied by the charities.
Emphasising its policy on the rescue ships, Italy said on Friday that it forced the MSF rescue vessel to take the 165 people that it had saved from boats in the Mediterranean operation to the northern port of Genoa. The port was more than 650 nautical miles (1,200km) from their position and much farther than the more convenient ports in nearby Sicily, significantly delaying assistance to the rescued.
The route in the central Mediterranean is the most dangerous migrant crossing in the world, with the United Nations registering more than 20,000 deaths and disappearances in the area since 2014.
More than 3,000 refugees and migrants went missing in 2023 while attempting to use the route, according to the International Organization for Migration.
According to Italy’s interior ministry, the number of arrivals in the country has dropped in 2024 to fewer than 21,800 people since the beginning of the year, compared with close to 53,300 in the same period last year.
[Aljazeera]
Nuwan Thushara’s last over brought Sri Lanka screaming back into the match,as he first bowled Rishad Hossain, and then nailed Taskin Ahmed in front of the stumps with a pinpoint swinging yorker. This left Bangladesh eight wickets down, with 12 runs still to get.
However, the experienced Mahmudullah was at the crease for Bangladesh, and despite some further nervy moments, pushed Bangladesh across the line off the last ball of the 19th over.
But this was a match chiefly decided by Bangladesh’s own outstanding bowling. Mustafizur Rahman was the best among them, using shorter lengths and his cutters efficiently, to claim figures of 3 for 17. Rishad Hossain’s three-for through the middle overs also kept Sri Lanka quiet.
Mustafizur was instrumental in Sri Lanka’s downward spiral through the middle overs, which culminated in a crash-and-burn end. Ultimately, their inability to find boundaries, or even rotate strike against good Bangladesh bowling resulted in their downfall. A score of 125 for 9 always seemed poor on a decent pitch, even if their bowlers made a match of it in the end.
Brief scores:
Bangladesh 125 for 8 in 19 overs (Towhid Hridoy 40, Litton Das 36; Dhanajaya de Silva 1-11, Nuwan Thushara 4-18, Wanidu Hasaranga 2-32, Matheesha Pathirana 1-27) beat Sri Lanka124 for 9 in 20 overs (Pathum Nissanka 47, Dhananjaya de Silva 21; Tanzim Hasan Sakib 1-24, Taskin Ahmed 2-25, Mustafizur Rahman 3-17, Rishad Hossain 3-22) by two wickets
[Cricinfo]
Afghanistan boosted their Super Eight chances with yet another dominating win, this time thumping New Zealand by 84 runs in Providence. Having beaten Uganda by 125 runs in their opening match, they are now at the top of Group C with a net run rate of 5.225.
After being sent in, Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran gave Afghanistan a start of 103 in 14.3 overs. It came off the back of the 154 the pair added against Uganda, thus making them the first opening pair to register two successive century stands in the history of the T20 World Cup.
Afghanistan’s was an innings of two halves. They scored 55 for no loss in the first ten overs and 104 for 6 in the last ten, with Gurbaz contributing 80 off 56 balls. New Zealand, who had decided not to play any warm-up games, looked every bit rusty as their fielders dropped catches and missed run-out opportunities.
With the pitch assisting both seamers and spinners, chasing 160 was not going to be easy. But few would have expected New Zealand to collapse in the manner they did.
Fazalhaq Farooqi picked up three wickets in the powerplay and Rashid Khan three just after it. Eventually, both ended with identical figures of 4 for 17 as New Zealand were bowled out for 75 in the 15.2 overs. Glenn Phillips and Matt Henry were the only New Zealand batters to reach the double digits.
Trent Boult found some swing in the opening over but Gurbaz and Ibrahim showed their intent by picking up three fours off Henry from the other end. Both batters had luck on their side, too. Gurbaz got a second life when he skipped down the track to Santner and missed the ball, which went on to brush the leg stump but the bails did not budge. In the following over, Finn Allen dropped Ibrahim off Henry at the deep-square-leg boundary.
That was not all. Gurbaz got another reprieve after being involved in a miscommunication with Ibrahim. Having taken off for a single, Gurbaz had to retrace his steps and would have been run out had Conway not fumbled the throw.
Two balls later, New Zealand finally seemed to have found success when Santner pinged Ibrahim’s pads and umpire Kumar Dharmasena ruled it lbw. But the batter got the decision overturned on review as the ball was heading down the leg side. Immediately after that, Ibrahim hit Santner for an inside-out four as Afghanistan ended the powerplay on 44 for no loss.
New Zealand went against the prevailing wisdom of not bowling an offspinner when two right-hand batters at the crease, and Michael Bracewell repaid that faith by conceding only six off his first two overs.
Lockie Ferguson was even more frugal, going for five in his first two. He could have had Ibrahim off a slower full toss but a leaping Kane Williamson failed to pull off a one-handed stunner at mid-off. That meant while Afghanistan remained unscathed, they had only 55 on the board after ten overs.
Afghanistan had not hit a single six in the first ten overs, but there were five in the next three, including three in one Bracewell over as Gurbaz and Bracewell stepped on the accelerator. The pair took the side past 100 in the 14th over. New Zealand finally broke through when Ibrahim bottom-edged a short ball from Henry onto his stumps, after having been hit on the grille on the previous delivery.
Promoted to No. 3, Azmatullah Omarzai played his part with 22 off 13, which included two sixes in three balls off Henry. Mohammad Nabi fell for a first-ball duck but Gurbaz kept finding the boundary at regular intervals. However, a three-wicket, three-run final over by Boult kept Afghanistan to 159.
Farooqi gave Afghanistan a dream start with the ball. With the very first delivery of the innings, he uprooted Finn Allen’s leg stump as the ball moved in late. In the seamer’s next over, Conway pushed at one that seemed to come slower off the surface and was caught at extra cover.
The decision to give Farooqi a third over in the powerplay brought further rewards. This time, bowling around the wicket to Daryl Mitchell, he got a length delivery to just straighten and take the outside edge. Gurbaz took a regulation catch to complete the dismissal and leave New Zealand 28 for 3.
It could have been worse for New Zealand. In between, Naveen-ul-Haq had rapped Kane Williamson’s front pad after the batter had moved across to play a delivery. Afghanistan sent it upstairs for an lbw review but the umpire’s call saved the New Zealand captain.
Afghanistan did not have to wait too long for Williamson’s wicket. Rashid brought himself on after the powerplay and struck straightaway as Williamson guided one to first slip. But Rashid was just warming up. In his next over, he dismissed Mark Chapman and Bracewell off successive deliveries to leave New Zealand on 43 for 6. Chapman went for a pull and got bowled; Bracewell was late to bring his bat down and was lbw.
Phillips was New Zealand’s last hope. He did hit a couple of boundaries but was soon caught at long-on when he tried to take on Nabi. That ended any hopes of revival New Zealand might have had.
Brief scores:
Afghanistan 159 for 6 in 20 overs (Rahmanullah Gurbaz 80, Ibrahim Zadran 44, Azmatullah Omarzai 22; Trent Boult 2-22, Matt Henry 2-37, Lockie Fergusoan 1-28) beat New Zealand 75 in 15.2 overs (Glenn Phillips 18; Rashid Khan 4 for 17, Fazalhaq Farooqi 4 for 17, Mohammad Nabi 2-16) by 84 runs
[Cricinfo]
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