Sri Lanka Women’s world literally disintegrated before them in their best ever favourable home backyard tilt for the ICC Women’s World Cup Skipper Chamari Athapaththu and her team could ever look for nose diving by a huge 89 run bruising at the hands of an England in a hashed up must win face off on Saturday at Colombo’s hub of cricket , the R. Premadasa International Cricket Stadium by a costly let off of their century match winner, Sciver Brunt when on 3 as that dream cup slithered further and further away on an already two defeat pang from three outings, but for one point from a rain washout versus Australia to staring at a ruing emptiness of the prospects of a failed world cup mission leaving the Lankan skipper, now 35 in a growing disillusionment of a giant world conquering image fade away in an out of form rut in the very heart of cricket’s biggest challenge in her career dipping to ageing retirement by all accounts behest by the apparent fading shine that once made her reign over the rest of the world in ICC Player Rankings.
Literally, Sri Lanka was cooked in by Prabhodini spilling a straightforward catch on the leg side, a clear indictment of an ageing player at 40 years in the big fold of world cup magnitude.
Thus, Sciver Brunt and England let loose when Sri Lanka had them hopping on 2 for 49 proved to be the defining game changing factor to the big picture world cup disintegration now lying seventh in the points table in contrast to a joyous second placed England by that hurrah of denting the Lankan Women in their own backyard.
That the Lankans yet for all pinned England tog 168 for 6 was a praiseworthy factor of the fightback on the 3 wicket Inoka Ranawweera, but for that piece of gold in Sciver that continued to dazzle to foil the Lankans to setting it up for Sophie Ecclestone to run through their opponents for 164 in 45.4 overs by a devastating 4 for 17 match haul by Sophie Ecclestone where the Lankan chase was confined to just the threesome of Hasini Perera 35, Harshitha Samarawickrama 33 and Nilukshi de Silva 23 in that erosion.
England 253 for 9 (Sciver-Brunt 117, Ranaweera 3-33) beat Sri Lanka 164 (Hasini 35, Samarawickrama 33, Nilukshi de Silva 23, Ecclestone 4-17, Sciver-Brunt 2-25) by 89 runs.