Sana stars as Pakistan get off to winning start with Sri Lanka romp

Mohammad Abdullah, Senior Sports Reporter

Fatima Sana led from the front, after scoring a fighting 30 runs she took two wickets as Pakistan defeated Sri Lanka by 31 runs in their opening match of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium on Thursday.

After posting a total of 116, Pakistan eves bundled out Lanka damsels for a paltry 85 to register their first win the T20 World Cup 2024.

Chasing, Lanka got off to a stuttering start as Pakistan’s skipper Sana sent her Sri Lankan counterpart back in the third over to make some inroads.

After the dismissal of Athapaththu, Lanka women could not apply themselves as they failed to get the partnerships going and kept on losing the wickets at regular intervals.

Omaima Sohail uprooted the stumps of Harshitha Samarawickrama and Hasini Perera in her consecutive overs to reduce Lanka to 35/3. Lanka batters had no answer to Pakistani bowlers.

Nashra Sandhu also struck in quick succession to heap more misery on Lanka by sending back Kavisha Dilhari and Vishmi Gunaratne, leaving Lanka in deep trouble. They were five down for 52, needing another 64 runs with just seven and half overs to go.

A mediocre target started looking like a herculean task for Lanka as their batters threw away the wickets to reckless shots, leaving a lot to be done for the others.

Other Lanka batters also wilted under pressure and could not put up a fight as Pakistan emerged winners eventually.

Earlier, Sughandika Kumari Udeshika Prabodhani and Chamari Athapaththu shared nine wickets between them to help Sri Lanka restrict Pakistan to 116.

The heavily-loaded spin attack of Lanka reminded the spectators that these girls come from the land of great Muttiah Muralitharan. Both the spinners dominated the game from the beginning.

It was Kumari who triggered the collapse as Pakistan lost their first wicket for six runs. From there on, they could never recover and kept on losing the wickets at regular intervals.

Kumari got rid of opener Gull Feroza. She had Feroza caught by Anushka Sanjeevni to give Lanka first breakthrough. 10 balls later, Muneeba Ali also fell prey to Kumari in the similar fashion, as Sanjeevni took another brilliant catch behind the stumps after a little wobble in the first attempt.

After losing two wickets early on in the innings, Pakistan had gone on the backfoot. They had come into the match with two consecutive losses in the warm-up games. Their morale was already down.

A charged-up Sri Lankan bowler kept on attacking to intimidate the Pakistani batters. Sidra Amin was caught and bowled by Athapaththu as Pakistan were reduced to 32/3.

Their problems were compounding as the Pakistani needed a big partnership to post a challenging total. Omaima Sohaila and Nidar Dar showed some resistance as they knuckled down to build the faltering innings.

Both the batters played cautiously and shared a 25-run stand to take the score to 57 before Kavisha Dilhari got rid of Omaima. Every time Pakistan women tried to take a stride forward they were pegged back by two.

Dar took the charge in her hands and added a quickfire 15 runs for the fifth wicket with Tuba Hassan. When they looked set to take the scores to a respectable total, Udeshika Prabodhani struck to claim her first but perhaps the most important scalp of the day.

She rattled the stumps of Dar to send her back to the pavilion. The dismissal of Dar opened the floodgates for Lanka spinners as they ripped through the lower order of Pakistan batting line-up.

Athapaththu wreaked havoc as she took two wickets on successive balls. Athapaththu had Hassan caught by Sanjeevni before trapping Aliya Riyaz for a golden duck to leave Pakistan in tatters.

Fatima Sana played a captain’s knock as she waged a lone battle single-handedly. She not only defied the Lankan bowlers but frustrated them with some aggressive hitting.

Sana made her intentions clear from the first beginning. She started hitting the Lanka bowlers from the word go all over the ground. Her quick-fire 20-ball 30 took the pressure off briefly.

Sana hit three fours and one six during her stint at the crease. Sana added 28 runs with Nashra Sandhu for the ninth wicket to propel the score past the 100-run mark. In the whole innings, Pakistan hit only five boundaries, three of them came from Sana’s bat.

But on a batting turf like that of Sharjah, this was never going to be easy to defend. Prbodhan got Sana caught by Sanjeewani to all but put Pakistan’s hopes to an end.

Probadhani picked the wicket of Sadia Iqbal to wrap up Pakistan's inning for a paltry 116 in 20 overs.

In the early match of the day, tournament host Bangladesh beat Scotland by 16 runs.

Bangladesh put up 119-7 and restricted debutant Scotland to 103-7, as off-spinner Saskia Horley took 3-13.

Brief scores:

Pakistan 116 all out in 20 overs (Sana 30; Athapaththu 3-18, Kumari 3-19, Prabodhani 3-20) vs Sri Lanka 85-9 in 20 overs (Iqbal 3-17)

Result: Pakistan won by 31 runs