Weather gods call off play early
The centenary big match between Trinity and St. Anthony’s had quite a bit of good cricket. The knocks of Sanogeeth (83) and Boyagoda (90) provided attractive cricket. Percival also made runs quickly. Among the bowlers, Anthonians Alawi and Trinitian Nethumal stood out. Ultimately, the rains had the last word as they consigned the Big Match to a watery end.
Trinity opted to continue batting and build a bigger total. Percival and Banugoban added 66 in their unbroken stand of 66. Banugoban got things moving with a couple of strong drives down the ground.
Percival then upstaged him, launching a big six and several boundaries in his 40. At one stage he faced 34 deliveries for just four runs.
The Anthonians did not use the spinners, relying instead on the medium pace of Jayasinghe and Wickremarachchi.
The Anthonians were shell-shocked by the first ball dismissal of Jayasinghe. Then Absar fell to a nothing shot. After, hitting two pulls to the square leg boundary flicked at Percival and was caught off the leading edge.
At 50 for 5, they were in deep trouble. But chirpy Abeykoon and more composed Himsara, who were given some loose deliveries by the spinners, took full toll of them to add forty five.
Trinity was pressing for victory. Despite the best efforts of the plucky Abeykoon, his team was far away for a win. This issue was settled by weather gods, who forced play to be called off shortly after 2.00pm.
Trinity 270 for 5 wickets in 77 overs (S. Shanmuganathan 83,
H. Boyagoda 93, T. Percival 40n.o, T. Banugoban 21n.o, M. Alavi 3 for 57) St. Anthony’s 99 for 6 wickets in 21 overs (J. Himsara 34, T. Abeykoon 23n.o, V. Nethumal 3 for 28, T. Dilshan 2 for 15)
| Sorry, no pictures We apologize for not being able to publish pictures of the centenary match between Trinity and St. Anthony’s. This is due to the organisers and security personals denying entry to the venue to our staff photographer Anuradha Bandara, who travelled all the way from Colombo to Pallekele to capture the action. He was kept at the gate for nearly two hours until rain poured down and abandoned the match. |