UNDER 19 CRICKET Trinity in seventh heaven, defeat Joes after 51 years
Thomians crush Wesley as Tharindu rocks them
Trinity coasted to their seventh outright win of the ongoing Under19 inter- school cricket season with a five wicket win over St. Joseph’s in their match concluded at Darley Road yesterday.
Trinity chasing 153 runs for victory in 33 overs took up the challenge thanks to useful knocks coming from Arjuna Jayasinghe, Madawa Munaweera and Shanmuganathan Shanogeeth who paved the way for them to reach the required target in 30.4 overs.
Trinity win also saw them securing an outright win against St. Joseph’s after a lapse of 51 years with the last being recorded way back in 1964 under the leadership of M.P.M. Zarouk and also the last win in Colombo against the Josephians was achieved in 1926.
The win had added value as the Kandy lads came into the game sans three of their top players in Nushan Weerasinghe, Lahiru Kumara and Duvindu Tillekeratne who are in the Sri Lanka U19 squad, preparing for the forthcoming series against Bangladesh.
Trinity in fact had put themselves in a strong position in the morning session of play on day two. Resuming from their overnight score of 164 for 8 they went on to make 183.
St. Joseph’s after being shot out for 111 batting the second time fared better with Jehan Daniel making a 72 supported by Aravinda Akurugoda and Hashindra Perera enabling them make a score of 224 but in the end it proved to be insufficient.
Spinner Tharindu wrecks Wesley
Dual purpose spinner Tharindu Ratnayake who is capable of bowling with both arms wrecked the Wesley batting when he ended with an impressive match bag of 15 for 59 and guide S. Thomas’ to an innings and 54 run win in their Under-19 inter- school cricket encounter concluded at Mt. Lavinia yesterday.
The match was played for the M. Sathasivam Trophy donated by Wesley in the year 2000 in which the Thomians led by Gihan Fernando won the game.
Coincidentally the coach of the 2000 team was Dinesh Kumarasinghe who is presently in charge of the team with the Thomians winning the trophy after a lapse of 14 years.
The Thomians had put themselves in a strong position when play ended on day one after making a modest score of 240 and then having the Wesleyites struggling on 80 for 7.
The second day’s proceedings saw the Wesleyites being unable to make any impression as Tharindu ran through the batting with Wesley being able to add only another three runs being bowled out for 83. Tharindu ended with impressive of figures on 7 for 17.
Wesley made to follow on with a deficit of 153 runs fell into deep trouble and was struggling on 58 for 5 at the lunch break with Tharindu taking four of them.
The Wesleyites did not last long in the post lunch session as Tharindu spun a web again to grab four more wickets to bowl them out for 103. Tharindu again ended with another impressive bowling return of 8 for 42 to steer the sea side boys to their fifth outright win for the season.
Ibbagamuwa cave in against Johnians
Left- arm spinner Raviendran Lohathieswar coming into the cricket field after missing two matches due to an injury showed that he has not lost his form as he guided St. John’s Jaffna with a match bag of 9 for 74 record an innings and 113 runs over Ibbagamuwa Central in the Under-19 match which ended at St. John’s ground in Jaffna.
Raviendran’s impressive performance came after Paramanathan Thuvarakaseelan who made a quick fire 142 in 134 balls that included 18 boundaries and five sixes and Sebamalapillai Jeni Fleming (89) had laid the foundation for the victory.
Paramanathan and Jeni Fleming put a massive 183 runs for the fourth wicket enabling the Johinans to make an impressive score of 335. Ibbagamuwa Central having ended on 62 for 2 on day one collapsed to a score of 142 as Jathushan Vasanthan and Raviendran shared eight wickets doing the damage.
Ibbagamuwa Central made to bat again with the daunting task of erasing 193 runs was unable to achieve it as Raviendran along with Kanagaratnam Kapilraj and Arulanantham Ghanamirthan combined with effect to bundle them out for a meager 80 and steer the Johinans to their sixth outright win.
At Darley Road: Trinity beat St. Joseph’s by 5 wickets
St. Joseph’s 111 (Pathum Madusanka 29: Shanmuganathan Shanogeeth 7 for 35, Raveen Sayer 3 for 39) and 224 ( Jehan Daniel 72, Aravinda Akurugoda 41, Hashindra Perera 37: Pramodya Abeykoon 3 for 36, Raveen Sayer 3 for 54, Dilan Jayalath 2 for 12) Trinity ( 164/ 8 overnight) 183 (Dilan Jayalath 53, Hasitha Boyagoda 49: Aravinda Akurugoda 3 for 73, Harin Cooray 2 for 7, Treshan Perera 2 for 16, Jehan Daniel 2 for 28) and 156 for 5 ( Arjuna Jayasinghe 40, Madawa Munaweera 24, Shanmuganathan Shanogeeth 27 n. o.: Aravinda Akurugoda 3 for 57)
At Mt Lavinia: S. Thomas’ beat Wesley by innings and 54 runs
S. Thomas’ 240 ( Yohan Mendis 57, Nipuna Gamage 47, Chenutha Wickramasinghe 38, Ravindu Sasanka 29, Helakamal Nanayakkara 36 n.o.: Reshana Seneviratne 4 for 40, Andrew Parais 3 for 61)