Wesley College produced a powerful batting performance to take major honours over their more fancied opponents S. Thomas’ College in their Inter-Schools Under-19 traditional cricket fixture worked off at Mount Lavinia during the weekend.
It was a superb calculated attack by the Wesley top-order batsmen who made the Thomians to regret heavily after they were invited to bat first on a good batting surface.
The Wesleyites went on a scoring spree as they planned their innings beautifully, session by session while making the Thomians to toil hard the entire first day for success under hot and humid conditions.
Their innings was anchored by Sahil Dias who hit a career best 142, which equalled the highest individual score for the Wesleyites against S. Thomas’ in the series between the two schools.
The legendary Mahadevan Sathasivam had also scored 142 for Wesley in their Inter-Schools Under-19 encounter against S. Thomas’ way back in 1936.
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| Sahil Dias |
The Thomians were always under pressure from the moment Wesley hammered over 300 runs and their batting simply crumbled and were skittle out for a poor 129 runs in the first innings.
No doubt this was a huge setback for the home side, which started the game as clear favourites following their morale boosting innings victory over St. John’s College, Jaffna a few days earlier.
But this time the opposition was completely different and their batting and bowling departments were fully exposed while leaving some doubts whether they could keep their reputation during the remaining fixtures of this season.
The only silver lining for S. Thomas’ was the solid batting of Anuk Palihawadana who hit an unbeaten half century in the second innings after they had the ignominy of following on.
St. Peter’s vs St. Sebastian’s
St. Peter’s College produced a fine all-round performance to dominate their Inter-Schools Under-19 traditional cricket encounter against St. Sebastian’s College, which ended in a draw at Bambalapitiya.
Neither side managed to score over 200 runs in this low-scoring game but the Peterites certainly had the upper-hand over their opponents on both days.
In fact, St. Peter’s even could have come out victorious if they had at least another one hours of play left on the final day as they were eventually had an easy target of 125 runs.
However, they were left with less than 10 overs to get those runs and had no option but to settle for a draw with major honours going for the Peterites.
The Peterites will be quite pleased with their bowling performances as they never allowed the opposition to dictate terms in both innings.
Leg-spinner Wanuja Kumara had a highly successful outing with a superb five-wicket haul in the first innings and another three wickets in the second innings.
In the batting department, Vinuda Liyanage is turning out to be the key player as he displayed his prowess once again to lift his side following a shaky start to the innings.
The all-rounder made his presence felt, not for the first time this season with a battling innings having played a leading role in their victory over St. John’s College at this same venue a few days earlier.
For St. Sebastian’s, Yashan Avishka impressed with a fighting half century in their first innings total of 160 for nine while Kalana Perera bowled well to restrict the home side for 185 for nine.
St. Anthony’s vs Maris Stella
St. Anthony’s College proved too strong to their opponents as they outplayed Maris Stella College, Negombo by an innings and 67 runs in their Inter-Schools Under-19 cricket encounter worked off at Katugastota.
The Antonians looked far superior in all departments of the game and they simply executed their game plan well with the senior players leading from the front.
Their strategy was clear from day one and their idea was to build up a formidable first innings score after electing to bat first and to put pressure on the opposition on the second day.
The Antonians did exactly that as they rattled up a massive first innings score of 320 while occupying the crease almost the entire opening day.
The good thing about their batting was the fact that only one batsman scored a half century but yet, they went over the 300-run mark quite easily, which is an outstanding effort.
The Antonians had plenty of runs on the board to put the pressure on the opposition and Maris Stella were bowled out for 120 and 133 in their two innings.
This was of course, a collective effort from the Antonians but still the season campaigner Gihan Ebert stood out with an excellent five-wicket haul in the second innings.
Richmond vs Dharmasoka
Richmond College came from behind with a fine performance to grab the honours in their Inter-Schools Under-19 cricket encounter against Dharmasoka College, which ended in a draw at the Galle Stadium.
Richmond had a shock start to the game and their formidable batting line-up managed to put up only a score of just 150 runs after having laboured for 43.1 overs.
However, their bowlers quickly made amends for that early setback by running through the Dharmasoka batting line-up and were able to snatch a slender first innings lead.
Richmond never looked back from thereonwards and they went on to extend the overall lead to 262 runs before reducing the opposition to 101 for seven in the second innings.
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