Sri Lanka’s women have reached the semi-finals of the Asian Games cricket tournament, beating Malaysia by 86 runs in the third quarter-final in Nisshin, Japan, on Friday.
Batting first, Sri Lanka made 160 for 4 from their 20 overs. Malaysia were held to 74 for 7 in reply, Hiru News reported.
Athapaththu sets it up
Captain Chamari Athapaththu made 63 from 37 balls, an innings struck at better than a run a ball throughout, and Kavisha Dilhari finished unbeaten on 44 from 27.
Between them the two contributed 107 of Sri Lanka’s 160 — roughly two-thirds of the total — from 64 of the 120 deliveries available. The remaining batters accounted for the balance across the innings.
Malaysia never approached the rate required. Chasing 161, they needed just over eight an over and managed fewer than four, losing seven wickets in the attempt.
A first match, straight into the last eight
Sri Lanka entered the tournament with direct entry to the quarter-finals, meaning Friday’s match was their first of the competition — a single knockout game standing between the squad and the semi-finals.
The squad was named on 16 September, two days before the match.
Update: Dilhari took two wickets as well — and India are through
The Daily Mirror’s account, filed at 2.41 p.m., adds that Kavisha Dilhari also claimed two wickets — so her contribution to the win was an unbeaten 44 with the bat and 2 wickets with the ball, an all-round performance neither the Hiru report nor the scoreline alone conveys.
It also answers who Sri Lanka may face: India beat hosts Japan by eight wickets in another quarter-final to reach the same last four. Japan were dismissed for 57, with Sree Charani taking 4 for 10, and Shafali Verma made an unbeaten 40 from 15 balls to finish the chase inside five overs.
One discrepancy is worth flagging rather than smoothing over: the Daily Mirror describes Sri Lanka as “bowling their opponents out,” while Hiru gives Malaysia’s total as 74 for 7 — seven wickets, not ten. Hiru’s figure is the specific one and is used above; the Daily Mirror gives no Malaysian score at all.
Not reported
Hiru does not give the bowling figures, the fall of wickets, or the names of Malaysia’s batters and Sri Lanka’s wicket-takers. It does not name Sri Lanka’s semi-final opponents, or give the date and venue of that match — the questions the result most immediately raises.
Nor does it say how the other quarter-finals finished, or confirm the tournament format beyond the quarter-final stage.
One caution for readers searching the fixture: Sri Lanka and Malaysia also met at the 2024 Women’s Asia Cup, where Sri Lanka won by 144 runs in a match featuring a record-equalling Athapaththu century. That is a different match in a different competition two years earlier, and its scorecard is not this one.
