A well deserved title for Royal Institute
Royal Institute won The 15th InterInternational Schools Under-13 Cricket Tournament 2016, beating Gateway International Colombo by 6 wickets in the final played at the Lyceum ground in Wattala.
Gateway won the toss and elected to bat but they could not make much headway as they lost wickets on regular occasions. Eventually they were bundled out by Royal Institute for 130 with 70 deliveries from their allotted 50 overs still remaining.
Naren Muradilan top scored from Gateway with a fighting knock of 27 and Iflal Iqbal made the next best contribution with 17 runs while other batsmen failed to live up to their expectations. The main wrecker of the Gateway batting lineup was Rakindu Lekamge who grabbed three wickets for 11 runs. Azen Saffer tightened the grip more effectively with figures of 3 for 31 to put Royal Institute in a comfortable position in their run chase.
Royal Institute too had hiccups at the start but a fluent knock of 69 from skipper Yasiru Rodrigo ensured they chased down the victory target without much hindrance. Ashan Boruppa hit 16 while Iflal Iqbal returned to capture three scalps conceding 32 runs for Gateway. Eventually Royal Institute made it home losing just four wickets and with 17.4 overs remaining.
Royal Institute claimed three of the four individual awards on offer. Skipper Yasiru Rodrigo had a fantastic tournament by snatching two of those awards -- the player of final and the player of the tournament. To claim the player of the final award his contribution of 69 runs was too much for consideration and he also claimed a wicket to justify his selection. By the end of the competition Yasiru’s tally of runs was 374 and he had claimed seven wickets in total to be picked as the player of the tournament. His team mate Azen Safeer, with a tally of 14 wickets, won the best bowler of the tournament award.
The 15th Inter-International Schools Under-13 Cricket Tournament 2016 was conducted by Lyceum International School Wattala with the participation of 15 International school teams. The tournament was worked off from March 8 to 22 at the Lyceum ground in Wattala.