Sri Lanka qualifies for the World Cup 2008

Herbert Perera from South Africa

A sure win for Sri Lanka over Ireland was robbed by rain at Tuts Oval, Pretoria that would have pushed her up to 5th in world ranking in the qualifying series was a heart break for the Lankan girls who after scoring a massive victory over South Africa in the previous match, left them cursing the rain.

The local papers headlined 'No April Fool's joke as Sri Lanka hammers hosts, South Africa'. Another paper said 'Favourites, South Africa suffers shock defeat at Sri Lankan hands'.

South Africa was riding high and who had pushed Sri Lanka down to the seventh slot with Ireland trailing behind but with the Sri Lankan victory, tables turned for South Africa.

At Pretoria, Gwen Herat, President, Women's Cricket Association told the news media that Sri Lanka was caught flat-footed by the West Indies by their over-confidence as they had beaten the winners 6-0, the previous year in the six ODIs on their tour of the Caribbeans.

The girls are very young and mostly without experience but that is no excuse and they have made it to the next World Cup.

They have to go back home and start hard training and be more focused'.

When the media asked her whether she was disappointed? Ms. Herat said 'Yes, she answered "I was hoping they will end up in the semi-finals and it was a chance they missed but with their excellent fielding, Sri Lanka was able to make it to the next World Cup as a finalist".

Hiruka Fernando and Shashikala Siriwardena were the consistent players throughout the series along with newcomers, Prabha Udawatte and Srini de Alwis.

World ranking for the moment: Australia, New Zealand, England, India, West Indies, Sri Lanka, South Africa and Ireland.