Harshitha, Nilakshi star in Sri Lanka second win

Image Courtesy: @ICC

Sri Lanka women 129 for 3 (Harshitha 69*, Marufa 3-23) beat Bangladesh women 126 for 8 (Mostary 29, Ranasinghe 3-23, Athapaththu 2-19) by seven wickets

Cape Town: Harshitha Samarawickrama and Nilakshi Silva stitched together a century stand to help Sri Lanka chase down the target of 127 in Cape Town against Bangladesh.

Harshitha Samarawickrama and Nilakshi Silva revived the Sri Lankan innings after 18-year-old Marufa Akter caused havoc early in the Powerplay.

Harshitha starred with an unbeaten half-century with Nilakshi providing able company with an equally good knock. The duo came together with Sri Lanka at 25/3 and remained unseparated till the end as they chased the target down.

Restricted to 126/8, Bangladesh needed a good start with the ball and teenage sensation Akter did just that when she had Chamari Athapaththu caught at mid-on in the fourth over.

Akter went on to dismiss Vishmi Gunaratne and Anushka Sanjeewani off back-to-back deliveries in her next over to send panic waves across the Sri Lankan camp.

The duo brought up the fifty-run stand in 46 balls at the end of the 13th over, at which point Sri Lanka needed 52 runs from 42 balls.

The opener brought up her fifty with a boundary off 41 balls and then compounded Bangladesh's woes with a six next ball. The runs came pouring thereafter as Sri Lanka won with more than an over to spare.

Earlier, a brilliant direct hit from Harshitha Madavi set the tone for what was to come as Sri Lanka got an early breakthrough.

Bangladesh fought back with a hat-trick of fours in the third over before Shamima Sultana fell to Oshida Ranasinghe, who picked up the first of her three wickets.

Despite the two early wickets, Bangladesh got to 48/2 inside the Powerplay. Sobhana Mostary and skipper Nigar Sultana were building a solid partnership when Chamari Athapaththu had the former cleaned up in the 10th over.

Mostary was undone by sharp turn that saw the ball sneak in between bat and pad to hit the stumps. Sri Lanka used the wicket to turn in two quiet overs to bring down the run rate.

Sultana continued to drive Bangladesh's charge before the game-changing 16th over that saw Ranasinghe dismiss the Bangladesh skipper and Lata Mondal.

Sri Lanka took some superb catches and effected two direct-hit run-outs to restrict Bangladesh to 126/8 in 20 overs.