Women's World Cup: Vihanga replaces Kulasuriya as SL elect to bowl vs unchanged ENG

Colombo, Oct 11 Sri Lanka won the toss and elected to field first against England in the 12th match of the ongoing Women’s World Cup here at the R Premadasa Stadium.

England are unbeaten in the tournament, having clinched victories in both the matches that they’ve played this edition so far, and are placed second on the points table behind defending champions and arch-rivals Australia.

While they clinched a dominant victory in their campaign opener against South Africa, the English women were put to the test against Bangladesh, but managed to clinch a close win.

Sri Lanka, meanwhile, are placed second from last, that is seventh, and are yet to win a game this season. After losing their campaign opener to India, the co-hosts’ second clash against Australia was washed out without a ball being bowled. With that, the Lankans have just one point from the abandoned game.

Winning the toss, Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu mentioned that the team had made one change to their playing XI from their previous game, as she said, “Very confident about my bowling unit. If we restrict them to 240, it will be good. One change for us. We struggled with our batting in the middle overs. Have worked on it. Privilege for the whole team to play at home.”

England captain Nat Sciver-Brunt, meanwhile, noted that they were looking to bat first as such. At the toss, she said, “Across the day, hopefully it'll get slower (on the pitch). We've had a few recruits coming in. Definitely not taking anything lightly. They've got some brilliant spinners on their side.”

Playing XIs

Sri Lanka Women: Hasini Perera, Chamari Athapaththu (c), Harshitha Samarawickrama, Vishmi Gunaratne, Kavisha Dilhari, Nilakshi de Silva, Anushka Sanjeewani (wk), Dewmi Vihanga, Sugandika Kumari, Udeshika Prabodhani, Inoka Ranaweera

England Women: Tammy Beaumont, Amy Jones (wk), Heather Knight, Nat Sciver-Brunt (c), Sophia Dunkley, Emma Lamb, Alice Capsey, Charlotte Dean, Sophie Ecclestone, Linsey Smith, Lauren Bell

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