CHENNAI: Chamari Athapaththu has played international cricket for over 15 years. She has lived through the ups and downs of Sri Lankan cricket. Whether it was beating then-defending champions England in the 2013 ODI World Cup or overpowering South Africa in the latest T20 World Cup edition in 2023, she has been the beating heart of the team. These ups also came with lows where Sri Lanka women did not play any cricket for more than a year following the COVID-19 pandemic and missed out on a chance to play in the 2022 ODI World Cup.
Since the start of the new ICC ODI Championship, Sri Lanka have consistently played games against quality opposition at home and away venues. Not just that, Sri Lanka have also beaten better-ranked teams and Athapaththu saw it as one of the most important factors in the change of fortune for her team.
“We have played a lot of cricket in recent times and we have beaten a few teams as well. We beat New Zealand in Sri Lanka, England on their home soil, and South Africa in South Africa. So, my team is in a positive mindset. That will definitely help in the qualifiers,” Athapaththu had said before the qualifiers.
Since the new cycle, one of the things that has changed for Sri Lanka is the contribution from the likes of Vishmi Gunaratne, Harshitha Samarawickrama, and Kavisha Dilhari. Earlier, Athapaththu’s contribution was so dominant that the Sri Lankan batting would fall apart once the opposition figured out how to send the captain back. Now these youngsters also started to dig deep to first support their captain and later survive on their own.
The best example of the next generation standing up came in the T20I series against England, where Sri Lanka’s bowling attack and these batters stood up as Sri Lanka clinched the three-match T20 series. And that was the theme in the T20 World Cup Qualifiers as well. In their first match of the qualifiers, bowlers defended the total against Thailand. Athapaththu scored a half-century against Scotland, while Dilhari took four wickets. Gunaratne scored her second T20 fifty against Uganda and she again gave the team a solid foundation in the semi-final win that sealed the T20 World Cup spot for them.
However, Athapaththu is tired of going to the World Cup via qualifiers. “We missed the opportunity to automatically qualify for the World Cup as Bangladesh was announced as the host. But we cannot really control these things. I try to control what I can control. World Cup qualifiers is good for us because we can play a few games ahead of the World Cup, but I hope this is the final time we play the qualifier because I do not want to play the qualifiers again,” she had said before the start of the tournament.For now, Scotland and Sri Lanka are both going to Bangladesh in October for the World Cup. It is a good sign that the young generation is well-equipped now to take Athapaththu’s legacy forward.