Royal, Trinity advance to semi-finals

Royal College Colombo and Trinity College Kandy advanced to the semifinals of the Under 19 inter-schools limited over cricket tournament with the two sides recording convincing wins against Nalanda College and St. Sebastian’s College Moratuwa played at Mount Lavinia and Reid Avenue yesterday.

Royal skipper Ahan Wickramasinghe and opener Sineth Jayawardena were the match winners in their six-wicket win against Nalanda played at Mount Lavinia.

Wickramasinghe cracked an unbeaten 71 in 79 balls that comprised six boundaries while Jayawardena made 60 in 75 balls which had six boundaries and a six.

Jayawardena laid the foundation for Royal’s win by associating in a valuable 63 runs for the second with Isiwara Dissanayake, as they chased down a target of 190 for victory.

Later skipper Wickramasinghe along with Dasis Manchanayake put on 64 runs for the fourth wicket for Royal to race to the target with ease in the 39th over. Earlier Nalanda taking first lease of the wicket were given a sound start of 70 runs by openers Rashan Dissanayake and Nadil Jayakody and despite an unbeaten knock of 59 coming from Raveen de Silva they were able to muster a score of only 189.

At Reid Avenue, Dinuka Tennekoon and Abishek Anandakumar shared seven wickets while Umair Raizan made a top knock of 60 to guide Trinity to an easy seven-wicket win over St. Sebastian’s in their quarter final encounter.

St. Sebastian’s taking first lease of the wicket got off to an inauspicious start losing their first wicket in the first ball and from there on they never recovered. A fighting knock of 51 by Yashan Avishka was in vain as he lost partners at the other end as Trinity’s Tennekoon ended with impressive figures of 4 for 23 and Anandakumara supporting him with three scalps, bowling out the Sebs for a low score of 131 runs. Trinity openers Raizan, who made a top score of 60 off 79 balls with eight boundaries, and Thewin Amarasinghe chipping in with 39 gave them a solid start putting on 87 runs.

Even though they lost two quick wickets for the addition of 16 runs Pawan Pathiraja who remained unbeaten on 21 helped the Trinitians to race to the target in the 31st over.

The other two quarter-finals are down for decision with St.anthony’s College Katugastota meeting Mahanama College Colombo at Kurunegala and St. Joseph’s College clashing with Richmond College at

D. S. Senanayake ground in Wijerama Mawatha.