After beating the tourists for the first time to level their T20 series on Tuesday, the Girls in Green have followed up with two more stunning successes at Stormont over the longer 50 overs distance, with a different captain on each occasion.
Prendergast had to step into the breach on Sunday when Gaby Lewis, who had herself taken over from the injured Laura Delany, pulled up with a tight quad, leaving the most inexperienced of sides to take on the Asia Cup champions.
Undaunted, Amy Hunter, Leah Paul and Rebecca Stokell all scored half-centuries to post a respectable 255-5 and a resilient bowling performance sparked a Sri Lanka collapse from 172-2 to 240 all out and an Ireland victory by 15 runs.
“It was a tight game throughout,” Prendergast said.
“We know they have a lot of big batters up top but that if we could take wickets and break partnerships we could expose the lower order, and we kept up our energy and did that.
“I really enjoyed captaining for the first time — it’s hard not to enjoy it when we played like that and came out with the win.”
It is also hard to over state just how massive a win this was for coach Ed Joyce’s young side – a real coming-of-age victory.
Hunter, who made 66 from 71 balls is still only 18, while spinners Freya Sargent and Aimee Maguire, who stemmed the flow of runs when Sri Lanka’s third-wicket partnership looked to be seizing the game, are 18 and 17 respectively.
With experienced batters Lewis and Delany missing, the key partnership for Ireland was 114 for the fifth wicket between Paul, the top scorer with 81, and Stokell who finished 53 not out.
While Harshitha Samarawickrama was making 105, Sri Lanka had the target well within their sights but her disastrous run out at the end of the 42nd over was the first of five wickets in 12 balls, and Arlene Kelly soon wrapped up the win to finish with 3-41.
Jane Maguire took 2-33 from eight nagging overs in the middle of the innings but it will be the full quotas from her sister Aimee (1-49) and Sargent (1-46) that will have most pleased Joyce as he dreams of a 3-0 sweep in tomorrow’s (TUES) final game.
