Thirty six teams in fray for League title from next week

Royal and Anuradhapura Central relegated to Division II

The U19 inter-schools cricket league tournament 2017/ 2018 conducted by the Sri Lanka Schools Cricket Association (SLSCA) and sponsored by Singer Sri Lanka Ltd will get underway from early September with 36 teams divided into four groups of nine in each in the fray.

From the 36 teams the notable absentee is Royal Colombo who along with Anuradhapura Central has been demoted to the Division Two this year. The two teams have been replaced by St Thomas’s Matara and St John’s Panadura who have been promoted by virtue being the two finalists of the Division Two category in 2017.

Ananda who emerged the league champions defeating Richmond have been placed in Group D. The teams in the four groups have been seeded from the points that they gained after the completion of the group stage matches of the 2018/2017 cricket season.

In the league stage each team is scheduled to play eight matches. Apart from that each school should play five more traditional matches to be considered for nomination of awards at the end of the league season.

The SLSCA has made it compulsory for each team to play a minimum of three tournament matches before the GCE O/ L exams which is scheduled to be held in December and on resumption the remaining five tournament matches have to be played before February 15 2018 and all the traditional matches too should be completed by the end of February 2018.

The knockout tournament is scheduled to be played thereafter and the SLSCA has decided include four teams from each group instead of the two teams that were taken from each group. This has been done with the aim of giving opportunities and to make the knockout tournament more competitive.