Chamari Athapaththu alone at the top as she carries Sri Lanka above her

"From the beginning, I knew she was special."

There's never quite been a player like Chamari Athapaththu for Sri Lanka. Shashikala Siriwardene, who captained Sri Lanka, and played international cricket for 16 years, would know.

Siriwardene was already a senior in the Sri Lanka team when Athapaththu broke through. The team had been away at an Asia Cup when Athapaththu first came to their attention. Sri Lanka had played the final of that Asia Cup in Kurunegala, which as it happens is the closest city to Athapaththu's hometown of Gokarella. But it was in Colombo, at a domestic tournament, that Athapaththu had impressed the selectors.

"What I remember about Chamari at the time was how determined she was," Siriwardene says. "She'd come very early to train. Although she lost her father during that period, she somehow found a way to make sure she could keep playing cricket, and just kept coming. Though she was young [Athapaththu was in her late teens at the time] she had that desire.

The early 2010s were not an especially rich era for Sri Lankan women's cricket. Resources were scant, with the board forever in some kind of political turmoil, which in turn led to enormous debt and even greater financial strain. There had been little consistent coaching support; for some coaches, the women's team was a stepping stone to more high-profile roles in the men's game.

And yet it took Athapaththu little time to gain a reputation as a batter of rare power. For a Sri Lanka cricketer, her rise was astonishing. No batter from the island had hit an ODI hundred in their first 85 ODIs. Athapaththu managed it in her seventh ODI innings, crashing 111 off 110 balls against Ireland, at the P Sara Oval in Colombo. By the time she turned 22, she had two further fifties to her name, and had drawn admiration for playing shots that no one else could play.

"Even back then you couldn't really compare her to anyone else," Siriwardene says. "She was totally unique. At her young age, the strength with which she hit the ball, and the style that she had - you can't coach that.

"For all of us in the team, that cover drive she hits for six was the special shot. We'd had six-hitters before, but that was mostly using the slog. We loved watching her go over extra cover and over the bowler's head."

Through the course of those earliest years, Siriwardene remembers the seniors wrapping their arms around Athapaththu. "Her father had been the main supporter of her cricket journey, and so she really felt that loss. We all grew quite close to her during that time"

There was also the fact of her precocious batting. Siriwardene was among the leaders in the team by this time, and would soon formally take over the captaincy. The decision was made about Athapaththu that a player as talented as this deserved a free hand.

"She was the kind of player who even if she hadn't played for a month, would turn up to a match and do well. But when I was captain alongside coach Harsha de Silva, we gave her a lot of freedom, so she had the space to mature. We didn't give her any targets. We didn't tell her what to do. We wanted her to play in her own unique way. We knew the more she grew into herself, she would lift up the team."

So watered by teammates, Athapaththu would soon bloom. In her first World Cup game, she announced herself emphatically, top scoring with 62 against England, in a famous Sri Lanka chase. Eshani Lokusuriyage would go on to play perhaps the more important innings, as Sri Lanka claimed victory off the final ball. But almost everyone agrees that win was maybe the most vital staging post in the team's history. And Athapaththu had laid the foundation.

Since her arrival, there are few Sri Lanka ODI victories to which Athapaththu is not central, few Sri Lankan batting records pages she does not dominate, little argument over whom the greatest cricketer the island has ever produced could be.

She is the most prolific ODI batter by such a distance that if she makes a total of 181 runs in this World Cup, she will have twice as many runs as the next-best batter - Siriwardene.

Sri Lanka have 11 ODI hundreds in total - Athapaththu has hit nine of those, including each of the top-seven highest individual scores. In T20Is, no other Sri Lanka batter has made triple figures, but Athapaththu alone has three, which places her equal-second in the world. In terms of just 50-plus scores, Athapaththu has 28 in ODIs. Siriwardene, the next-best again, has seven.

She is such a singular weapon that she is almost certainly one of the most-studied batters in world cricket, a data-backed view having formed among oppositions that dismissing Athapaththu cheaply usually means beating Sri Lanka.

Sometimes even the greatest Athapaththu innings haven't been enough. Her 178 not out off 143 against Australia in the 2017 World Cup was arguably the greatest Sri Lanka innings played until that point (the only competitors would be other Athapaththu innings). And yet the team's next-best score was 24, and Athapaththu's runs comprised 69% of the team's total. Australia sped to the target with ease.

Beyond the frustrations of frequently being on the losing team despite personal heroics, there have been other obstacles. Often the late 20s and early 30s are some of the richest years of a batter's career - a time when growing experience tends to mesh with still-sharp reflexes. Athapaththu had just turned 30 when she played her last international before the Covid lockdowns.

She was almost 32 when she played her next match, Sri Lanka Cricket having refused to schedule women's bilateral cricket for almost two years, although the men had been playing for much of that time. That hiatus, plus Sri Lanka's low rankings had meant that Sri Lanka did not even qualify for the last ODI World Cup. There were also snubs from the major franchise leagues, particularly the Women's Premier League, for which she was not selected in 2023 and 2024.

And yet since her post-Covid return, Athapaththu's batting has been even more exemplary. In ODIs she averages 46.37 and strikes at 98 since 2022 - a substantial improvement on her pre-Covid numbers.

Just beyond the boundary of the ground in Dambulla, Athapaththu was pacing like a nervous parent on exam day. In the middle, two young batters were attempting to do something Sri Lanka had never done before: win an Asia Cup. Athapaththu had provided the platform for this T20I chase of 166, as usual, hitting 61 off 43 balls from the top of the order, in addition to having claimed a wicket in India's innings.

But Sri Lanka still needed 75 off 48 balls when Harshitha Samarawickrama and Kavisha Dilhari were joined at the crease. There have been years when this would have seemed too much for the remainder of the batting order. Athapaththu would have been needed to stay until the end to see a victory through.

"I never actually saw Atha akka (older sister) pacing up and down near the boundary, because there was such a huge crowd in the ground at the time," Dilhari says. The final was watched by a full house in Dambulla, not least because they considered Athapaththu - the captain of this team - a local girl.

"But what I do remember of that campaign was that at one night practice, before the tournament even began, Atha akka spoke to me as we were walking to fielding training," Dilhari says. "She just told me, 'Kavi, don't give up until the last moment. Who knows if it will be the last Asia Cup in Sri Lanka. We have to make it count. If you get the chance to do something, play fearlessly nangi (younger sister), and take it.'"

Dilhari had never before in her T20 career struck a six, but with 51 required to win off 34 balls, she sent a Radha Yadav delivery sailing over the deep midwicket boundary. Several overs later, Dilhari clobbered the second six of her career - down the ground this time. This one won Sri Lanka the match, and their most-prized trophy to date. In the victorious team photo after the tournament, Athapaththu crouched at the edge of the group, letting her younger team-mates have their space near the centre.

Athapaththu is still 35, and shows no real signs of waning. In fact, her bowling is arguably getting better. She had picked up offspin only after making it into the national team, Siriwardene says, but had with her usual tireless work ethic, improved her bowling so substantially that she is essentially regarded as an allrounder on the league circuit. Still, Athapaththu has hinted that she's thinking about international retirement over the past 18 months. Sri Lanka's younger batters have been lapping up as much of her wisdom as possible.

"Atha akka is not someone who would ever hold anything back from you," Dilhari says. "Whatever she has learned over the years, playing all around the world, and in the leagues, she doesn't keep to herself - she'll tell anyone. With me, she's talked a lot about how to adjust to different situations in the game. But also I've learned a lot about life from her - how to manage our cricket with other things in life."

Athapaththu's words aren't all sprinkled with sweetness, Dilhari laughs. "I'm one of the players who gets scolded the most. One time, I'd dropped a catch and when I was asking her a question about where I should field, something about being dangled from a lamp-post was said. But I do really think those things also made me a better player."

Although there is a fledgling group of batters, Sri Lanka would clearly benefit from having Athapaththu around for years to come. It is in the back of many minds that this could be her last ODI World Cup, however. It is in this format that she has carved the greatest arc.

"I know she's got hopes of winning a World Cup, so we're determined to get ourselves there, and I'm wishing Atha akka a lot of runs in the tournament," Dilhari says.

Athapaththu herself appears relaxed before the tournament. She doesn't have to do it all herself anymore, she feels.

"More than in the other tournaments, I'm pretty relaxed in this one," Athapaththu said just ahead of the tournament, in Colombo. "The youngsters have been performing - Harshitha Samarawickrama, Vishmi Gunaratne, and Kavisha Dilhari, are all batting well. So more than other times, I'm able to relax a bit."

"I'm going to be playing the game I play in the powerplay. Then, after that, the challenge is to figure out how I can change gears and do more damage. My one aim is to get Sri Lanka into the semi finals before I retire. If we can get there, we can figure out the next steps. But even getting there is big."

Sri Lanka play five of their seven round robin games in Colombo, and internally, believe themselves capable of making a deep run in this tournament. While the younger players mature, Sri Lanka will likely need their greatest player to impose herself again, to make a mark on the tournament.