Chamari Athapaththu, captain of the Sri Lankan women’s cricket team, during a World Cup match against England in Colombo in October 2025. Athapaththu’s fortuitous rise means Sri Lankan girls no longer look only to the national men’s team for examples of success.IMAGO / Shutterstock
Culture
A sports journalist’s journey alongside the rise of Sri Lankan women’s cricket
The success of Chamari Athapaththu and Sri Lanka’s women’s cricket team is showing a new generation of girls where their dreams can take them, and opening doors to women in media and other adjacent fields
Since making her international debut in the 2009 T20 World Cup at the age of 19, Chamari Athapaththu, now the captain of Sri Lanka’s women’s national team and a record-breaking batter, has carried the hopes of her cricket-mad country – and of women’s cricket – on her shoulders.
Athapaththu first picked up a cricket bat at the age of five. It was a gift from her uncle, a cricket coach. But it was Sanath Jayasuriya, an all-rounder and key player in Sri Lanka’s 1996 Cricket World Cup-winning men’s team, that inspired her to dream of playing cricket herself. The next year, her uncle helped her realise that her dream could become a reality.