Women's Asia Cup 2022: Harshitha Madavi's brilliance helps Sri Lanka breeze past Thailand

Sri Lanka won their second successive game of the 2022 Women's Asia Cup, defeating Thailand by a comprehensive margin of 49 runs. The islanders move to third place on the table and are tied on four points with Pakistan and India, the top two teams by virtue of this win. Thailand surrendered meekly after their opponents posted a handsome total of 156 runs in their first innings.

The chase was always going to be an improbable task and proved to be the case eventually. Thailand lost their opening batter, Natthakan Chatham cheaply and kept losing wickets at regular intervals as the Sri Lankan bowlers tightened their grip on the match. 

Nannapat Koncharoenkai, the other opening batter, played some delightful shots during her stay, but could not capitalize on her start and was dismissed for 25 off 21 balls. Chanida Sutthiruang held the fort from one end during the chase but the Thailand batters never threatened the Sri Lankan total as the innings fizzled out for 107/5, handing Sri Lanka their second victory of the tournament.

Sri Lanka will be pleased by the victory with the bowlers never letting the opposition batters out of sight in the chase. But the coaching staff will have to paper over a few cracks in the upcoming games as the islanders did not cover themselves in glory on the field.

Harshitha Madavi and Nilakshi de Silva help Sri Lanka to their fourth-highest total in T20Is

Coming to the toss, Sri Lankan skipper Chamari Athapaththu called it right for the third successive time in the ongoing tournament and elected to bat first on a decent batting surface. The skipper provided a solid start to the islanders with a brisk 63-run stand along with Harshitha Madavi for the opening wicket. 

After the dismissal of Athapaththu, it was her prodigious opening partner, who led the charge for the team with a combative 81 runs off 69 deliveries. The talented opener showed a glimpse of her skills and was accompanied diligently by Nilakshi de Silva. The latter provided the much-needed impetus to the Sri Lankan innings with her blistering knock of 39 runs of 21 deliveries to take the Sri Lankan score to 156/5.

Sri Lanka were threatening to post a much steeper total at one time, but the Thailand bowlers pulled things back nicely in the middle overs to restrict Sri Lanka to 156, their 4th highest total in the format.