St. Sevatius outclass Holy Cross by innings

St. Servatius Matara outclassed Holy Cross Kalutara by innings and 27 runs in the Under 19 Inter-School cricket encounter concluded at the Uyanwatte Stadium in Matara yesterday.

St. Servatius taking first lease of the wicket spearheaded by a fine knock of 136 by Ramesh Nimantha made a modest score of 199. Holy Cross in their turn was tormented by bowlers Ashen Deemantha and Chanuka Dilshan who together shared seven wickets and was bundled out for a meager 68 runs.

Holy Cross made to follow on, with a deficit of 131 runs, was made to struggle for their runs again by Deemantha and Dilshan who together shared eight wickets to bowl them out for 104. Deemantha and Dilshan ended with a match bag of 9 for 51 and 6 for 45.

The Army rugby outfit which comes into the tournament as this year’s “Dark Horse” will go all guns blazing to topple the much fancied CR and FC as they come out for the first time in the Dialog Sponsored ‘ A’ Division club rugby league encounter with the kick off scheduled at 4.00pm at the Race Course grounds this evening.

The Soldiers are bolstered this year with the inclusion of quite a few local signees along with three Fijians and two Tongans and are planning to upset the apple cart like what Navy did last year. Chula Susantha, Bhanuka Nanayakkara and Andrew Benson have all crossed over from the Navy along with their skipper Rohitha Rajapaksa who will lead the Soldiers today.

Fijian center Epi Cokansiga who played for the Army a few seasons ago is back and will occupy one of the centers berths. Pio Tuwai and Samuela Saiquwaare are also two Fijians who are powerful runners. Their pack will be bolstered by the Tongan Kilifi Latu and So- saia Wainaka Palei both genuine Number 8 players.

CR not to be undone also possesses one of the finest sides on paper.

They virtually have adopted the entire now shut down ‘Up Country Lions’ where nine players along with Coach Imthi Marikkar has shifted to the Longden Place club.

CR skipper and fly half Ashan de Costa will have all New Zealanders as their foreign signees with Farrell Puppy (flanker) who has already acclimatized himself to local conditions where he played his first practice match the traditional “Captains’ Game” against CH last week. His fellow pack mate Joe Faumui will fea- ture along Billy Ropina (center) and Robbie Malneek (full back/center) who are still to be confirmed for today.

Sithum Peiris the six foot two schoolboy star from Wesley College, last year’s