South Africa won the toss and choose to bowl against Sri Lanka.
Sune Luus made the decision to pursue South Africa’s swan song on a tour that began two months ago in Ireland and will end in South Africa. They were victorious in both of the white-ball series that they played in Ireland, but they were defeated in both of the series that they played in England, and they are currently on a losing skid of eight games in a row. They are no longer in the running for the semi-finals of the Commonwealth Games, and their match against Sri Lanka will be used to decide who would receive the “wooden spoon” for Group B.
After suffering defeats at the hands of England and New Zealand, Sri Lanka is also out from competition for the knockout stages. Both of Sri Lanka’s matches were fully dominated by their opponents, and the focus of the team’s attention was on their skipper, Chamari Athapaththu, who had only scored 10 runs overall in the tournament. After been granted the conditional right to host the Women’s Twenty20 Champions Trophy in 2027, Sri Lanka is looking at the wider picture as well. That they are eligible to participate in the competition is, of course, a precondition.
Both teams made one substitution to the starting XIs that had competed in the previous matches between them. South Africa replaced Ayabonga Khaka with Masabata Klaas, and Sri Lanka replaced opening batter Vishmi Gunaratne with seamer Malsha Shehani. She will be playing in her third Twenty20 International, but it will be her first time competing in the Commonwealth games.
Anneke Bosch came in first, followed by Tazmin Brits, Laura Wolvaardt, Chloe Tryon, and Mignon du Preez in that order for South Africa. 6 Sune Luus (capt), 7 Nadine de Klerk, 8 Sinalo Jafta (wk), 9 Shabnim Ismail, 10 Masabata Klaas, 11 Nonkululeko Mlaba
Sri Lanka: 1 Chamari Athapaththu (capt), 2 Hasini Perera, 3 Harshitha Samarawickrama, 4 Nilakshi de Silva, 5 Kavisha Dilhari, 6 Anushka Sanjeewani (wk), 7 Ama Kanchana, 8 Malsha Shehani, 9 Oshadi Ranasinghe, 10 Sugandika Kumari, 11 Inoka Ranaweera
