Sports
Capsey, Gaur shine in the wet to help England clinch rain-affected win
England slipped and slid to victory on a damp evening in Hove, with Alice Capsey’s rapid half-century and a wicket on debut from Mahika Gaur underlining the sense of promise for a young, experimental side. Although the winning margin was eventually just 12 runs, after Duckworth-Lewis-Stern brought Sri Lanka’s target down to 68 from six overs, there was rarely any doubt that England were the side in control.
Capsey equalled her career-best T20I score with 51 from 27, including five fours and three sixes, as England bludgeoned their way to 186 for 4 from 17 overs. Danni Wyatt continued her flying form from the Hundred with 48 from 30 at the top of the order and there were sparky cameos from Freya Kemp and Heather Knight as Sri Lanka’s attack struggled for control in the wet.
Sri Lanka had opted to bowl after heavy rain during the day led to the start being delayed by an hour, but there was little assistance from the conditions as Udeshika Prabodhani’s opening over went for 12 and England rattled along at a rate in excess of 10 for the rest of the innings.
The upshot was a record chase for Sri Lanka in T20Is, but the weather returned to lend an air of jeopardy to proceedings. Heavy rain took the players from the field with only 3.1 overs bowled – 11 balls short of a result – and the DLS calculations left Sri Lanka with a puncher’s chance, particularly with belligerent skipper Chamari Athapaththu at the wicket. But the 17-year-old Gaur had Athapaththu caught behind and the requirement of 45 off 17 balls proved too much for the tourists.
With Sophia Dunkley rested for this series, and the England selectors opting not to bring Tammy Beaumont in from the cold despite her scintillating Hundred form, Maia Bouchier walked out alongside Wyatt to open the batting for the first time in international cricket. Bouchier had batted exclusively in the lower-middle order during her 19 previous T20Is but was given an opportunity on the back of impressive form at No. 3 for Hundred champions Southern Brave.
But it was Wyatt, Brave’s barn-burner and the Hundred’s leading run-scorer, who set the tone. Her first ball was stroked nonchalantly through the off-side ring for four, and three more boundaries came in next over – including a hoick on to the concrete over deep backward square leg – as Wyatt took Sugandika Kumari for 16. Kawya Kavinda’s opening over was even more costly, featuring seven wides and 18 runs all told, and it took two tight overs of offspin from Athapaththu to limit the damage as England cruised to 55 without loss from the powerplay.
Bouchier, for her part, launched her third ball down the ground for four but was largely content to rotate the strike and let Wyatt tear it up. She struck a second boundary in the seventh over, slog-sweeping Inoka Ranaweera for six towards the scoreboard – but was then run out looking for a single off the bowling of Kavisha Dilhari, the spinner scampering to her right and throwing down one stump with Bouchier inches short to end a stand worth 77 off 45 balls.
Wyatt fell short of her fifty in the next over, missing a swipe at Ranaweera to be bowled. That heralded the arrival of Kemp, the 18-year-old allrounder making her first England appearance in almost a year after a back stress fracture – an injury that means she is being deployed as a specialist batter in this series. Pushed up above the captain, Heather Knight, she launched a towering six into the Sharks Stand at long-on as Kumari’s second over went for 18.
Kemp was stumped off Dilhari a few balls later but Capsey, the third teenager in the XI, took up the cudgels. Having moved to 23 off 17, she triggered Beast Mode with a trio of leg-side sixes in the space of four deliveries from Ranaweera. Having charged out to slug the spinner over long-on, she swivelled on a pull that only just cleared the fielder at deep midwicket and then, after Ranaweera had overstepped, crunched a huge blow high into the crowd in front the pavilion.
The 14th over had gone for 22 and the next, delivered by the veteran Prabodhani, cost 17 as Capsey slapped two more fours to go to a 26-ball half-century. She didn’t add to her score, bowled aiming a reverse at Athapaththu, but England were already formidably placed.
Knight indicated before the game that this was the beginning of a new World Cup cycle for her team, just over a year out from next year’s tournament in Bangladesh, with Gaur the most eye catching member of the next generation. A 6ft 3in left-armer, Gaur was born in Reading but made her international debut for UAE at the age of 12, and has impressed in the Hundred for Manchester Originals and with Thunder on the regional domestic circuit.
In the end, the rain limited her to just two overs but the attributes that saw her fast-tracked through the system after being scouted by Lancashire in 2020 – bounce and swing from a high, left-arm action – were on full display. Her first ball was a nervy leg-side wide that evaded Amy Jones but she soon found her rhythm and, after the resumption, hit back from being clubbed over long-on by Athapaththu to find the Sri Lanka captain’s outside edge for her maiden wicket in England colours.
No Riyan Parag? No Ravindra Jadeja? No fast start for Vaibhav Sooriyavanshi? No problem for Rajasthan Royals (RR) as they hunted down 221 against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) and moved up to No.4 on the points table. If RR also win their final league game against Mumbai Indians on Sunday, they will firm up their playoffs spot, irrespective of other results.
In RR’s chase of 221, Sooryavanshi got off to an unusually slow start – he was on 11 off 12 balls at one point. After watching his opening partner and RR stand-in captain Yashasvi Jaiswal dominate the powerplay, Sooryavanshi cranked up to top gear when he lined up left-arm seamer Akash Singh for two sixes and three fours in the ninth over. He then went on a more familiar six-hitting spree and by the time he was dismissed for 93 off 38 balls in the 14th over, he extended his sixes tally in IPL 2026 to 53. Only Chris Gayle has smashed more sixes in an IPL season, back in 2012 when Sooryavanshi was a year old.
Dhruv Jurel sealed the chase for RR with a calm fifty in the company of Donnovan Ferreira.
Jofra Archer ran in hard and hit the Jaipur deck harder, but even his extreme pace and bounce wasn’t going to bother Mitchell Marsh and Josh Inglis, the Western Australia boys. In the first over, Marsh advanced down the track, manufactured swinging room and flayed Archer for a four and a six over the covers.
Inglis was more fluent square of the wicket or behind square. He scooped Archer over short fine leg for four in the third over and by the end of the powerplay, LSG racked up 83 for 0. Four of LSG’s top-five powerplay scores in the IPL have come in this season. RR’s attack, meanwhile, went wicketless in the powerplay for a fourth successive game.
Wristspinner Yash Raj Punja bowled the first boundary-less over in the first innings. In the 13th over, he conceded only seven runs to go with the wicket of Nicholas Pooran (16). That over triggered a passage of play where LSG went 22 without a boundary. Earlier, he had stopped LSG’s opening stand at 109 in the ninth over when he tossed up a wrong’un on an in-between length and bowled Inglis for 60 off 29 balls. Punja returned figures of 4-0-35-2, demonstrating why RR trusted him and promoted him into their main squad after he was a net bowler with the side in the previous season.
Marsh brought up his fifty off 25 balls, but could manage only 43 off his last 32 balls on the day. The lack of pace from Punja, Sandeep Sharma and Dasun Shanaka slowed him down. “To be honest, felt like torture out there,” Marsh summed up the back-end of his innings. He suggested that he may have left a few boundaries out there.
Marsh, Rishabh Pant and Ayush Badoni all departed in the final over of the innings, bowled by Archer, which cost RR only five runs.
RR came out swinging in the powerplay in the chase, but it was Jaiswal, and not Sooryavanshi, who was doing most of the swinging during that phase. He was responsible for 39 of the 71 runs RR scored in the powerplay. Jaiswal latched onto anything that was remotely wide of off. His four fours off Akash in a 23-run first over, bowled by Akash, set the tone for the chase.
By the end of the powerplay, Sooryavanshi was on 25 off 16 balls, which was measured by his standards. All of 15, he had the maturity that he could catch up on a pitch where the ball came onto the bat nicely. He reached his half-century off 23 balls with a reverse-sweep and threatened to convert it into a century until Mohsin Khan stopped him. He finished with a strike rate of almost 245.
Prince Yadav, who had earned a call-up to India’s ODI squad earlier in the day, was pumped for back-to-back sixes. The other Yadav – Mayank – wasn’t spared either, with the teenage phenom launching him for back-to-back sixes in the next over.
Sooryavanshi holed out while attempting his 11th six, but by then he had snatched the Orange Cap from Marsh. Jurel then anchored the chase while Ferreira applied the finishing touches.
Brief scores:
Rajasthan Royals 225 for 3 in 19.1 overs (Yashasvi Jaiswal 43, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi 93, Dhruv Jurel 53*, Donovan Fereira 16*; Akash Singh 1-54, Mohsin Khan 1-31) beat Lucknow Super Giants 220 for 5 in 20 overs (Mitchell Marsh 96, Josh Inglis 60, Nicholas Pooran 16, Rishabh Pant 35; Jofra Archer 1-39, Yash Raj Punja 2-35) by seven wickets
[Cricinfo]
The Sri Lanka women’s volleyball team, powered by Dialog Axiata is set to depart the country today to compete in the 2026 Central Asian Women’s Volleyball Championship, which will be held from 22 to 29 May with the participation of eight nations from across the region.
The tournament will be played in two preliminary groups, with the Sri Lankan side, captained by Ashani Chamodika, drawn in Group ‘B’ alongside Kazakhstan, Iran and Bangladesh. Group ‘A’ will feature India, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives and hosts Nepal.
Sri Lanka Head Coach Amila Wijepala believes the team is well prepared to face the challenge despite being drawn in a highly competitive group.
“Our group is comparatively more challenging than Group ‘A’. Kazakhstan recently secured third place at the Asian Women’s Volleyball Championship after defeating China, making them our toughest challenge. We are confident of overcoming Bangladesh, while I also believe our players possess the ability to defeat Iran. Our objective is to win at least two matches and qualify for the semi-finals,” he said.
Vice President of the Sri Lanka Volleyball Federation, Mahinda Bandara, expressed confidence in the squad and praised the players for their commitment during the preparation period.
“We are fielding a very strong side for this tournament. The players have undergone close to two months of residential training at the Watupitiwala Indoor Stadium. We are grateful to the Ministry of Sports for its invaluable assistance in facilitating this tour. We also sincerely appreciate the continued sponsorship and commitment shown by Dialog Axiata towards Sri Lanka’s national sport and this international campaign,” he said.
The Sri Lanka squad for the Central Asian Women’s Volleyball Championship includes high-ball hitters Dilukshi Harshani, Nimeshika Sewwandi, Preethika Pramodani, Timi Mary, Arana Sanjeewani and Shalu Thilakshana. Short-ball hitters are Sanjeewani Karunaratne, Dilki Nethsara, Sesandi Ruwanya and Piumi Bhashini.
Naduni Nimansala and Kavindi Asanthika will serve as liberos, while captain Ashani Chamodika and Dilki Charuka have been named as setters.
The support staff includes Head Coach Amila Wijepala, Assistant Coach Udaya Rukmal, Trainer Upendra Perera, Women’s Team Officer Renuka Nilmini and Team Manager Mahesh Kariyawasam.
15TH STAFFORD MOTORS – MCA G DIVISION T20 LEAGUE CRICKET TOURNAMENT
Dayan Indunil starred with both bat and ball [86 off 48 balls and 4-10 in 4 overs] to power Brandix Apparel to a 70 run win over Stafford Motors at the Nalanda College grounds on Sunday [17] and qualify for the final of the Stafford Motors sponsored MCA G division T20 cricket tournament.
Invited to bat first on a cloudy day, Brandix were 108/1 at the halfway stage of their innings but were unable to keep up the run rate after the fall of the second wicket and were bowled out for 151. Chasing 152 to qualify for the final, Stafford Motors fell victim to the Brandix bowlers led by Dayan Indunil and Sampath Jayalath and were bowled out for 81 runs in 14.3 overs.
Brandix will meet Maliban Biscuits ‘B’ at the MCA ground next Sunday for the final.
Brief scores:
Brandix Apparel
151/10 in 19.1 overs [Dayan Indunil 86, Sampath Jayalath 14, Sasitha Ashan 13; Janith Maduwantha 3-29, Shanaka Sampath 2-25, Vihanga Malith 1-36, Sanjaya Fernando 1-17, Asanka Kumarage 3-20]
Stafford Motors
81/10 in 14.3 overs [Gajindu Yasas 24, Vihanga Malith 10, Vishwa Rajapaksha 27; Janaka Weerapokuna 1-20, Dayan Indunil 4-10, Sampath Jayalath 3-18, Akila Dhanuddara 2-14]
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