Sri Lanka’s one-woman show Chamari Atapattu stormed into the record books of women’s cricket when she hammered an unbeaten 195 in a monumental run chase in access of 300 to beat South Africa and draw the three-match ODI series 1-1 at Potchefstroom on Wednesday after the first match was washed out.
Atapattu smashed a career-best unbeaten 195 that also surpassed South African batter Laura Wolvaardt’s 184 which made the home team reach a total of 301 for 5 in the 50 overs.
It marked the first time in women’s cricket that a team successfully chased down a 300-plus target and won a match as Atapattu clouted 26 fours and five sixes in a devastating onslaught on the bowlers.
Atapattu’s knock put her in an elite club of women’s players to hit the highest individual score for their respective countries, the list of which is headed by New Zealand’s Amelie Kerr who made 232 not out against Ireland in 2018.
Australia’s Belinda Clarke is the only Other 200 run maker having achieved the feat against Denmark in 1997 when she made an unbeaten 229 making Atapattu the women’s batter with the third highest individual score in ODI cricket.
But if Atapattu, usually acknowledged as a one-woman show, had anybody to thank for once it would be in her batting partner at the epic feat Nilakshi de Slva who joined her with Sri Lanka down at 126 for 4 and kept her company with an unbeaten 50 in a stand of 179 for the fifth wicket.
It also marked the first time Sri Lanka scored a 300 total in women’s ODI cricket.
At age 34 Atapattu is Sri Lanka’s most capped international women’s cricketer with 101 ODI matches and an aggregate of 3,513 runs that takes in nine centuries and 16 fifties.
South Africa is currently ranked second in the women’s ODI championship with 23 points and Sri Lanka in the seventh position with 14 points and Australia leading the table with 28 points.
