ST. JOHN’S, Antigua Sunday - A commanding batting and bowling performance by Sri Lanka powered them to a comfortable 130 run victory over West Indies, in day six action of Rising Stars U19 Tri-Series at the Coolidge Cricket Ground on Saturday.
Captain Nipun Dananjaya with an unbeaten 91 not out (98 balls, 2x4, 6x6) alongside spin bowling duo Dilum Sudheera (6-1-10-3) and Kavindu Nadeeshan (6.4-0-17-4), combined to aid Sri Lanka posting the highest total of the Tri-Series and eventually ending West Indies chances of securing a place in the final on December 21.
Today’s encounter was the first played at the Coolidge for the competition and it commenced with West Indies winning the toss and electing to let their form bowlers have a crack at the Sri Lankan batsmen.
However, Sri Lanka’s captain Dananjaya led the fight back with a 67 run seventh-wicket partnership with Dilum Sudheera (27) which enabled the visitors to post a challenging total of 234-9.
West Indies were unable to utilize the final four overs from left-arm medium pacer Ramon Simmonds after he left the field due to an injury. Dananjaya took advantage of this, hitting Joshua James for four of his six sixes in final three overs of the innings.
In reply West Indies openers Kimani Melius and Mbeki Joseph started circumspect but solidly for the first 14 overs giving early hope that achieving the target was possible.
Left-arm spinner Sudheera fresh of his effort with the bat would make two major strikes in the 15th over to dent these hopes, dismissing Melius and Leonardo Julien in consecutive deliveries and the West Indies chase faltered after this double blow.
“Once again our bowlers got us into a good position, when we restricted Sri Lanka to 95/6 but we weren’t able to hammer home that good position due a combination of the injury to Ramon Simmons and excellent batting by the Sri Lanka captain”, said West Indies U19 coach Graeme West.
He continued: “A little bit of application at the top of the order from (Kimani) Melius and (Mbeki) Joseph which was good to see, but need to keep working hard to address our weak areas, especially playing slow bowling. It’s an area we have talked about and worked on a lot, but we are still coming up a bit short.”
Asked if the result is a cause for concern ahead of World Cup West said: “We can only keep working with the players that we have. The players are aware of where they need to get better and I’m sure the more opportunities they get against this quality (opposition), we will get the progress that we are looking for.”
Scores:
Sri Lanka U19: 234-9 (50) (Ravindu Rasantha 43, Nipun Dananjaya 91 n.o., Dilum Sudeera 27, Matthew Forde 4/31, Avinash Mahabirsingh 2/42)
West Indies U19: 104 (34.4) (Kimani Melius 20, Mbeki Joseph 20, Kevin Anderson 25, Dilum Sudeera 3/10, Kavindu Nadeeshan 4/17)
Sri Lanka U19 leg-spinner Kavindu Nadeeshan took four wickets for 17 to rout West Indies U19 for 104.
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