We are not underestimating our opponents, says Chamari

We are not underestimating any side in the Asia Cup cricket tournament and want to take match by match said Sri Lankan women’s team skipper Chamari Atapattu before their departure to Bangladesh yesterday. Sri Lanka women’s cricket team is scheduled to leave this morning for the Asia T-20 cricket cup which will be played at the Sylhet International cricket stadium in Bangladesh.

Asia Cup is a good opportunity for us to win this time and my team is confident to meeet this challenge added skipper Atapattu who is the most senior player having a lot of experience in the women’s cricket arena. India and Bangladesh are the only Asia Cup winning countries among the seven teams. India, the most successful country has won six titles out of seven Asia Cups while Bangladesh won only last time and Sri Lanka had emerged four times runner up. We wanted to reach the semi final and then go for the final said Atapattu. Three promising teams Malaysia, Thailand and UAE together with India, Pakistan host Bangladesh will compete with us and this is going to be a good battle between each other at this T-20 format.

We are getting good preparation under the head coach Hashan Tillekaratne while supporting staff Lanka de Silva (fielding coach), Dinuk Hettiarachchi (bowling coach) and not to forget our physiotherapist Thasneem Yusuf and Trainer Dharshana Weerasinghe. I myself got a good opportunity to take part in more franchise cricket tournaments like Women’s IPL, Big Bash league, England league, Caribbean league and last month I signed for the new New Zealand league cricket tournament and all of them give a big boost to me to develop my skills. During the franchise cricket I have been involved with worlds leading women’s cricketers from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, West Indies and even India and we exchanged ideas and their knowledge is very vital to continue my game said Chamari Atapattu. Actually both my self and opener Hasini Perera earlier got a chance to play at this same Sylhet International cricket stadium at the last T-20 World Cup which was won by Bangladesh. Hasini played her debut International at Sylhet while all other players with me this time get a chance to play for the first time at Sylhet. I have four times toured Bangladesh while getting chance to play Minpur, Chittagong, Pattulla, BASK sport complex and Sylhet and Sylhet normally good for the spinners and batters. My team have good spinners and they can turn a lot to give a good challenge against an opponent. The batting and fielding have to improve at this tournament and the top order has to click like the Sri Lanka men’s team, said Chamari Atapattu.

We have a mixed team with young and experienced players. We were the champions of the Commonwealth Games qualification tournament in Malaysia but we couldn’t do well at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.However we forgot our past match results and wanted to prepare for the Asia Cup and after that we are expected to play in the World Cup. We all focused with the same players but three newcomers Madushika Mettananda, fast bowling all rounder, Rashmi Silva leg spinner and Tharika Sewwandi the young fast bowler and there are good replacements but they have to get more match exposure. Udeshika Probodini the experienced fast bowler and young batter Vishmi Gunartatne are missing this tour due to injuries but we have good young players who have potential. The youngsters have to get more match exposure while I wish more of our players should be selected for the franchise cricket tournaments and that will give experience for them. Sri Lanka already conducted Lanka Premier League (LPL) for the men’s team and hope Sri Lanka cricket give that opportunity also to the women’s cricketers said Chamari Atapattu. At the moment SLC gave contracts for the women’s cricketers and three forces gave employment to the women’s cricketers and that gave a boost to continue cricket. We also have our won venue P.Sara Oval grounds for training and the facilities given by SLC is good to continue women’s cricket added Chamari.