With India playing the Sri Lanka men’s team in the first of the three-match ODI series in R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo on Sunday, July 18, it was the seventh series in which the Sri Lankan men’s team participated post-pandemic of 2020.
And what about the women’s team? Well, the answer is zero. The Sri Lankan team led by Chamari Athapaththu has not had a go at the cherry ever since their last World T20 match against Bangladesh in March 2020.
On the other hand, WODI status earned teams that are lower in stature and experience such as Bangladesh and Ireland too have played some form of cricket or the other. Even non WODI members such as Scotland and Zimbabwe Women have had some game time, but not Sri Lanka.
What plagues the association is hard to tell as they have been going all guns blazing against the men’s team for contract signing and in the meanwhile seemed to have forgotten that a women’s team of theirs also exists.
The most important factor is that Sri Lanka has been scheduled to host the Women’s Cricket World Cup 2021 (2022) Qualifiers in December which has been postponed many times since July 2020. A nation that would be hosting the Qualifiers hasn’t played a single game while the rest of the teams (except Thailand) participating in the qualifiers have had some game time or the other.
While West Indies have played two series, one against England women and the other against Pakistan women during the pandemic, Pakistan too have played two series one against Zimbabwe women (curtailed midway due to Covid) and the other against West Indies women. Ireland women have played a T20I series against Scotland women and are in the process to host Scotland and Netherlands women ounce again for a tri-nation ODI tournament.
Bangladesh’s Emerging women’s team, which had many main team players in it also played four ODIs against South Africa Emerging women’s team. All this shows that boards with either similar or fewer resources than Sri Lanka Cricket have at least tried to arrange games for its women’s teams while Sri Lanka cricket has remained in neglect of their team.
With hardly five months to go for the women’s World Cup Qualifiers, it would be interesting to see how and when Sri Lanka cricket would wake up to the needs of its women’s team.