Harshitha shall participate in T20 league

Sri Lanka batter Harshitha Samarawickrama has been named as the replacement for the injured Meg Lanning at the Trinbago Knight Riders in the 2024 Women’s Caribbean Premier League (WCPL). With this signing, Samarawickrama becomes the second Sri Lankan woman, after Chamari Athapaththu, to participate in an overseas T20 league.

Samarawickrama, a left-handed top-order batter, joins the Knight Riders' overseas lineup, which also includes Shikha Pandey, Jemimah Rodrigues, and Jess Jonassen. Her inclusion comes at a time when her career is on an upward trajectory. She was instrumental in Sri Lanka’s historic Women’s Asia Cup 2024 win, earning Player of the Final honours for her unbeaten 69 off 51 balls. She continued her impressive form with consecutive fifties in the T20I series against Ireland and made history by becoming the third Sri Lankan woman to score an ODI century with her 105 against the same opposition. In T20Is, she has amassed 1463 runs in 65 matches at a strike rate of 99.72.

Lanning, who was originally set to play for the Knight Riders, recently competed in the Hundred, where her team, London Spirit, claimed the title. However, she had a subdued tournament, scoring 170 runs in ten innings at a strike rate of 125.

The Knight Riders will begin their WCPL 2024 campaign against the Barbados Royals in Tarouba on Thursday.