Chamari Athapaththu didn’t quite look like a woman who has had to oversee crushing defeats in back-to-back-T20Is. She smiled constantly as she spoke of the horrors at Visakhapatnam and the desperate need to bounce back in Friday’s third T20I in Thiruvananthapuram against a powerful Indian side.

“I feel we need to improve our batting a little bit, especially in our middle order and how we finish the game as a batting unit,” said the Sri Lankan captain. “Our power game is not good enough for this format.”

She was all praise for her counterpart Harmanpreet Kaur. “We are good friends,” Athapaththu said. “We talk about cricket and other things as well. As a cricket I know she is one of the best leaders because she is the girl who changed Indian cricket. As an Asian, I am really proud of her.”

She recalled playing the Women’s T20 Challenge (the precursor to the WPL). “We shared the same dressing room when we played for Supernovas,” she said. “So, I know how she handled situations and how she managed people in the dressing room.”

Published on Dec 25, 2025