PAK Women vs SL Women, 2nd Match, Group A at Sharjah, Women's T20 World Cup, Oct 03 2024 - Match Result

That's it from us today. Hope you all enjoyed our coverage of the opening day of the T20 World Cup. I am signing off on behalf of Madushka Balasuriya and our scorer M Venkat Raghav. Do join us tomorrow for another double header. Until then, good night and take care.

Athapaththu: "I would like to congratulate Sana, she's played good cricket, leading from the front. That's really good for Pakistan. We struggled to chase. We have to adjust to conditions. These are good for batters, I hope we can bounce back. We bowled well. We have to bat really good too. We can't say wicket is slow and outfield is like this. We have to play positive cricket. [on taking on Australia next] Actually, approach is important. We have to play fearless cricket. They are a good team, if we can play best cricket we can beat any team."

Fatima Sana is the Player of the Match: "I am excited, thanks for the team they supported well. All credit goes to management. I blame myself [for the score], but I tried to back myself and be calm to hit. [on bowling] Obviously, we all know Chamari is a good player, we needed that wicket to have a good start and we got it. We won the toss and we wanted a lot of runs but we didn't get. But we still achieved the target in the game. [on Baig] Unfortunately she was injured. She is our main player. I had to calm myself as captain and carry on with the ball after that. We will ask her how she is after the game. We need to take the momentum and carry this to next match."

9.26pm: What a game from Pakistan. Fatima Sana, in her maiden T20 World Cup as Pakistan captain, opens the campaign with a 31-run win over Asia Cup champions Sri Lanka. That too defending just 116 runs. Her quickfire 30 helped Pakistan go past 100 in the first innings. In the chase, Sana used her bowlers wisely to dent the opposition. Spinners Iqbal, Sohail and Sandhu took seven wickets among them and took the pace off to give nothing to Sri Lanka batters. Sri Lanka lost Athapaththu early and unlike in the recent times, the likes of Gunaratne, Samarawickrama, Dilhari, Sanjeewani couldn't save the team as they lacked one big stand. Lack of boundaries put pressure at the end and eventually, they fell short.

Vishal S.: "Sana is the MVP, made runs and took wickets, captaincy impeccable."

Sana for final over

Shadow-Shell: "This match looks like a carbon copy of the first match so far"

Iqbal's final over

Udam: "Sri lankan team need a number 6,7 powerhitter. there was a player done the same role in previous sl u19 campaign. hopefully she will get her opportunity in near future."

45 runs in 18 balls. Dar now

Nisansala now.