3rd and final ODI at Grenada: Chamari and girls primed for Windies sweep

Sri Lanka Women’s cricket team will enter the third and final One-Day International against the West Indies seeking a rare 3-0 whitewash away from home, following two close victories in the previous two games at Grenada today (25).

With a historic series triumph already behind them, the tourists will also look to accrue crucial points at stake for direct qualification for the 2029 Women’s World Cup, with the ongoing series being a part of the ICC Women’s Championship. 

Sri Lanka won the first ODI on Friday (20) by 10-runs and followed it up with an equally narrow 14-run victory in the second 48-hours later. 

Chamari Athapaththu’s team will thus aim for their first away sweep against the West Indies since 2003, while the hosts will strive to avoid their first home whitewash (3-0) in a bilateral series since being swept by the England Women’s team four years ago.

The form book also is in favour of the Lankan girls as their previous clean sweep in a bilateral ODI series was also against the Maroon Warriors when they blanked the latter (3-0) at home in 2024.

Sri Lanka’s batting through the series has revolved primarily around the quartet of Hasini Perera, Chamari Athapaththu, Harshitha Samarawickarama and Vishmi Gunaratne, with notable contributions also coming through the blades of Nilakshika Silva and Kavisha Dilhari.

They will hope that at least one of them is able to play a long innings on the slow turners put out for this series by their hosts.

With the series already wrapped up by defending reasonably competitive but low totals in the first two ODIs, it will be interesting to see as to how the visitors will fare if asked to chase in the final encounter today.

The Lankan spin trio of Inoka Ranaweera, Kavisha Dilhari and Sugandika Kumari, have shared 13 wickets across the first two clashes against the Hayley Mathews-led side, and how they deal with this spin threat will dictate the course of this match.

For the Windies Women, youngster Jannillea Glasgow has been the standout performer scoring twin half centuries while batting in the lower middle order.

However, they will also need the rest of the batters to come to grips with not only the deck, but with the variations of the visitors’ slow bowlers, if they are to seek a consolation win in an already lost cause.

Source - The Morning