The extreme temperatures in England probably didn’t help but Ireland produced their worst performance at this Women’s T20 World Cup in their fourth match, going down to Sri Lanka in Bristol by nine wickets with a huge 27 balls to spare.

Only two places in the T20 World rankings separate these teams but Chamari Athapaththu was in a different class with the bat, hitting the first century in a winning chase at any T20 World Cup. She is set to improve on her No 9 world ranking after this one-woman innings of 106 (out of 134), fittingly winning the match with her 18^th boundary, which included her 100^th and 101^st sixes in T20 internationals.

The Ireland bowlers had no answer with only Orla Prendergast, who took the wicket, going at less than nine runs an over. The batting never got going either after Amy Hunter was run out after facing just two balls and Prendergast was stumped for a six-ball duck. That left Ireland, three for two in the second over after being put into bat.

Captain Gaby Lewis did put up a fight, scoring her second consecutive 50, from 40 balls, but only Leah Paul stayed with her for any length of time, putting on 66 for the fourth wicket after Rebecca Stokell drove straight to extra cover after hitting three boundaries.

Alice Tector stayed to the finish, with two boundaries in the final over getting Ireland up to 130 for five but it was never going to be enough if Athapaththu got going. And how!

It’s now 21 games without a win for Ireland at the T20 World Cup and they have only one more chance to break their duck at this tournament, back at Bristol on Saturday afternoon against West Indies. As Lewis said in her post-match press conference: “We beat them in the recent tri-series  so the confidence and belief is still there.”