IND-W vs SL-W T20Is: India primed to make it four in a row against Sri Lanka

The Gulf of Mannar that separates India and Sri Lanka cannot be as big as the gulf between the women’s teams of the two countries at the moment. That has become increasingly evident during the five-match T20I series.

The Women in Blue have already clinched the series with their eight-wicket win in the third T20I at the Greenfield Stadium in Thiruvananthapuram on Friday. Two more games are left to be played, with the fourth scheduled for Sunday.

The three matches in the series — the first two were played in another beautiful coastal town of Visakhapatnam — have followed a simple template: Harmanpreet Kaur would walk out to the middle for the toss, along with Chamari Athapaththu, win the toss, think deeply about it, and allow Sri Lanka to bat first.

The visitors would struggle to get going at any stage of the innings, would manage to score somewhere in the region of 120, and India would reach the target with plenty of overs to spare.

How desperate Chamari, her team’s most accomplished batter by some distance, would be to win the toss for a change — she could be empathising with Shubman Gill — and see if making India bat first would be any better.

The widening fanbase of the Women in Blue may not mind that at all: full 20 overs of Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Harmanpreet Kaur and Richa Ghosh, not to mention Amanjot Kaur or Deepti Sharma, should be fun.

Deepti hasn’t had to pad up for batting in the two matches she played. The last time she did was last month against South Africa in the ODI World Cup final, in which she struck a run-a-ball 58 and then claimed five wickets to seal her legacy as the finest all-rounder of Indian women’s cricket. She now needs just one more wicket to become the leading bowler in women’s T20Is.

She was outshone with the ball on Friday night, though, by Renuka Singh, who was returning to the Indian T20I side after a year. The swing bowler proved how vital her wicket-taking ability is to this largely young bowling unit.

The Lankan batters need to do better against the varied Indian attack. Their skipper is due for a big knock, and few women can hit bigger shots. Her opening partner Hasini Perera had looked promising for a brief period in the last match and there were decent knocks from Imesha Dulani and Kavisha Dilhari.

But the Lankans need much more against a rampaging Indian side.

The teams (from): India: Harmanpreet Kaur (Capt.), Smriti Mandhana, Deepti Sharma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Shafali Verma, Harleen Deol, Sneh Rana, Richa Ghosh, Amanjot Kaur, Arundhati Reddy, Kranti Gaud, Renuka Singh, G. Kamalini, Shree Charani and Vaishnavi Sharma.

Sri Lanka: Chamari Athapaththu (Capt.), Harshitha Samarawickrama, Hasini Perera, Vishmi Gunaratne, Nilakshika Silva, Kavisha Dilhari, Imesha Dulani, Kaushini Nuthyangana, Malsha Shehani, Inoka Ranaweera, Shashini Gimhani, Nimesha Madushani, Kawya Kavindi, Rashmika Sewwandi and Malki Madara.

Match starts at 7 p.m.