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Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu has cleared the air about her future in international cricket and said she will decide after the T20 World Cup qualifiers next month.
Athapaththu sparked speculation in the cricketing community by implying retirement in a now-deleted Facebook post in which she said 'final duty for my nation' following Sri Lanka's stunning T20I series triumph over South Africa. Prior to the ODI series against South Africa, the 34-year-old stressed that her major focus is on the impending commitments for Sri Lanka. "I'm still not decided [on retirement]. We can talk about it later. At the moment, I'm focused on the [South Africa] ODIs and World Cup qualifiers. Let's see in the future," Athapaththu said on the eve of the first ODI against the Proteas as quoted by ICC. Athapaththu will lead Sri Lanka at least until the Qualifiers when they must reach the finals to secure a spot in the main competition, which will be held later this year in Bangladesh. Sri Lanka is in Group A of the Qualifiers, which begins on April 25 in the UAE, together with Scotland, Thailand, Uganda, and the United States. The top two teams from each group will advance to the semifinals. The skipper expressed confidence in her team's performance ahead of the World Cup qualifiers, emphasising the versatility required to prevail in the UAE's conditions. "I'm pretty confident about my group. We've played really good cricket so far. But the UAE has different conditions and is really good for the batters. Every team goes to qualifiers to win so we have to play our best cricket in World Cup qualifiers as well. I'm pretty confident about my bowling unit and batting unit," Athapaththu added. Under Athapaththu's captainship, Sri Lanka has beaten England and South Africa in T20 series in the last ten months, as well as reached the Asian Games final, where they lost to India. "I'm really happy with our youngsters and how they handle the pressure in the middle, especially Vishmi [Gunaratne], Kavisha [Dilhari] and Harshita [Samarawickrama]. They're playing really, really good cricket over the last couple of months. And I think we have good depth," she said. They are eighth in the Women's Championship Points standings, just short of automatic qualification for the 2025 ODI World Cup. Between now and August, they will play nine more Championship matches, three versus South Africa, the West Indies, and Ireland. "We've worked hard as a country and as players. We've restructured our domestic cricket and we are playing a lot of cricket in Sri Lanka. We started an Under-19 tournament, Under-17 tournaments, provincial tournaments, and club tournaments. So better results are coming now. There are a lot of youngsters playing cricket in Sri Lanka and schoolgirls starting playing cricket. These are the positive things on my side, and I hope we can be a good team in future," Athapaththu said. (ANI)
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