Shashika’s hat-trick steers St. Servatius’ to first ever final
Under-17 Cricket Tournament
Left-arm spinner Shashika Dulshan broke the backbone of Nalanda’s late order batting as his hat-trick steered St. Servatius’ College Matara to a an exciting 11-run victory in the Under-17 Division One Cricket Tournament second semi-final played at Braybrooke Place yesterday.
Nalanda, in pursuit of 207 runs were sitting pretty at one stage with Sachitha Gunatileke (67 n.o) and Rusara Bhanuka adding 54 runs for the seventh wicket.
However, with the separation of the pair at195 saw the Nalandians needing just 11 runs for victory from 30 balls with three wickets remaining.
But Shashika coming into bowl his eighth over ran through the Nalanda batting with a hat-trick to end with impressive figures of four for 20 in 7.3 overs.
Earlier, St. Servatius’ invited to take first lease of the wicket fell into deep trouble as they lost their first four wickets with just 49 runs on the board by the 13th over.
Skipper Keshara Nuwantha who made a top score of 70 and Shashika Dulshan came into their rescue with the pair putting on a valuable 117 runs for the fifth wicket.
But again they experienced a setback as they lost their remaining five wickets for the addition of 40 runs and were bowled out for 206 runs with St. Servatius’ qualifying for their first ever final.
St. Servatius’ will now meet St. Anthony’s College Katugastota in the final scheduled to be played on August 30 at the same venue.
St. Servatius’: 206 in 49.3 overs (Keshara Nuwantha 70, Shashika Dulshan 51, Janith Jayaratne 3/23, Warsha Ananda 2/23, Jayod Caldera 2/33)
Nalanda: 195 in 45.3 overs (Chamindu Wijesinghe 31, Rusara Bhanuka 30, Sachitha Gunatileke 67 n.o, Shashika Dulshan 4/20, Naveen Sahith 3/32).