By Caroline Chepkorir
At the Sharjah Cricket Stadium, Australia successfully defended their Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 title by defeating Sri Lanka by six wickets. Megan Schutt knocked 3-12 in four overs while the left arm spinner Sophie Molineux was 2-20 as Sri Lanka was restricted to 3-7 in 20 overs.
Sri Lanka decided to bat first, but they struggled early as they managed only 93 runs for the loss of seven wickets. Athapaththu was cheaply dismissed by Ash Gardener for just three runs, which was a breakthrough for Australia in their fourth over.
Harshitha Samarawickrama tried to lay a strong foundation for Sri Lanka, and she scored 23 off 35 deliveries, but she was later dismissed by Sophie Molineux. On the other hand, Nilakshika Silva showed resilience by being undefeated on 29 off 40 deliveries, but her efforts were in vain as the Sri Lanka scoreboard was at 25-3 in 6.4 overs.
Captain Alyssa Healy was out for four, Megan Schutt and Molineux’s duo struck hard at the top order, and Georgia Wareham was run out for three runs.
Beth Mooney played a crucial role as she guided her team to victory. Chasing a target of 94 runs, Mooney steadied the innings with her batting. She hit undefeated on 43 of 38 balls, which included four boundaries, and Australia surpassed the finish line with 34 balls left.
“It’s a good result for us and some confidence out of that. We were decent without being perfect. We adapted to the conditions and just hung in there and scored at the end of the inning. We haven’t played here before, so the opportunity to watch and see how players were playing was quite helpful. We’ll probably throw a few things through the tournament; we’re so blessed with so much depth we don’t know quite what to do with it; we’ve got batters we can move up and down the order,” said Australia captain Healy according to BBC Sports.
Sri Lanka are currently struggling given the fact that they lost both matches, and they are now in a must-win situation for the remaining match if they want to qualify for the semifinals. Sri Lanka’s next match will be against India in October, while Australia will face New Zealand on October 8.
