Sri Lanka women’s cricket team will be eyeing their first win of the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2025 on Saturday as they lock horns with England. After losing their tournament opener to India by 59 runs, Chamari Athapaththu and co’s second game against Australia Women was washed out thanks to incessant rain in Colombo. The game against ENGW will be a challenge for SLW as the latter return to action after a 6-day break.
SLW predicted playing XI vs ENGW
Chamari Athapaththu (c), Hasini Perera, Harshitha Samarawickrama, Vishmi Gunaratne, Kavisha Dilhari, Nilakshi de Silva, Anushka Sanjeewani (wk), Achini Kulasuriya, Sugandika Kumari, Udeshika Prabodhani, Inoka Ranaweera
Sri Lanka will be hoping that their batters pull up their socks in the game against England after a sub-par performance versus India Women. Barring captain Athapaththu (43) and Nilakshi (35), none of the other batters looked promising, with majority of the middle and lower order batters being dismissed for below 20 runs. The Sri Lankan captain needs 80 more runs to get to 4000 runs in WODIs and become the first Sri Lankan player to do so.
In terms of bowling, Inoka was the pick of the bowlers with her four-wicket haul against India. The rest of them were quite expensive. With Sri Lanka set to take on England in their home ground – R Premadasa stadium in Colombo – the hosts will be hoping that familiarity of the conditions will work in their favour.
It is pertinent to point out that SLW and ENGW have locked horns 20 times in WODIs to date and the latter have won on 17 occasions. With the surface in Colombo set to aid the spinners, Sri Lanka will be counting on their slow bowlers to do the hard work.
SLW squad
Hasini Perera, Chamari Athapaththu(c), Harshitha Samarawickrama, Vishmi Gunaratne, Kavisha Dilhari, Nilakshi de Silva, Anushka Sanjeewani(w), Sugandika Kumari, Achini Kulasuriya, Udeshika Prabodhani, Inoka Ranaweera, Dewmi Vihanga, Piumi Wathsala Badalge, Malki Madara, Imesha Dulani
