Maliban, Avery Dennison, SLT, HNB ‘B’ in semifinals
Maliban Biscuits, Avery Dennison (Avery), Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) and Hatton National Bank (HNB) ‘B’ advanced to the semifinals of the 7th Stafford Motor Co. (Pvt) Ltd., sponsored ‘Honda’ Trophy MCA ‘G’ Division 25-Over League Tournament 2017,continued last weekend.
Gihan Anuruddha pulls one onto the leg side. Pic by Priyantha Wickremarachchi
In the quarterfinals (QF) played over the weekend, Maliban Biscuits scored a comfortable 8-wickets win over Deutsche Bank (DB) AG, and in a low scoring affair, Avery Dennison beat Aitken Spence Group (Aitken Spence) by 19 runs.
Debutant, Pyramid Wilmer went down fighting to SLT by 9 runs, in a high scoring game, while the experienced HNB ‘B’ had to work hard for their 3-wickets win over A Baur & Co.
1st QF: Maliban’s 3 right-arm fast-medium bowlers, Tharindu Siriwardena (5-0-19-2), Dilan Chathuranga (5-0-20-2)and Lahiru Dushantha (5-1-23-2) proved simply unplayable, as they shackled DB AG to a paltry 103 for 9 in 25 overs; Maliban shed little sweat on reaching 104 in just 18 overs and losing only two wickets.
2nd QF: Bowlers dominated this game too, when Aitken Spence bowlers, Nisal Aponsu (3-0-17-2) , Vimukthi Perera (5-0-22-2) and Kavishka Jayasinghe (3.3-0-22-3) did well to restrict Avery to 128 in 23.3 overs. But the Aitken Spence batsman failed to take advantage, as they were completely at sea against Avery’s 3-pronged rightarm medium pace attack of Samantha Fernando (3-0-13-2), Iresh Kasun (5-0-21-1) and Dhanuka Dinesh (4-0-12-3), and were 109 for 9 in their 25 overs.
3rd QF: In contrast to the 2 top half QFs, batsmen dominated this game. SLT batting first, scored 199 for 7 in 25 overs, riding on the splendid opening stand of 96 runs in 66 balls by Sudam Jayawardena (33 in 34 balls, with 1 six and 4 fours) and Nirushan Ramachandra (43 in 37 balls with 8 fours) along with a valuable, unbroken 8-wicket stand of 46 runs in 33 balls between Lahiru Ranathunga (23 not out) and Deshaja Yukthi (30 not out) and a generous dose of 38 extras.
The bowlers who stood out for Pyramid Wilmer were the 2 Fernandos – Lasith (4-0-35-2) and Shanaka (5-0-24-5)
Pyramid Wilmer making their debut in Mercantile Cricket, gave a spirited chase via Subodha Lakmal (32) early in the innings and Dinuk Nuwan (33 not out in 17 balls with 7 fours), later in the innings, but fell desperately short by 9 runs (191 for 8 in 25 overs).
Bowlers who restricted the rampaging Pyramid Wilmer batsmen were Kalpa Bandaranayake (5-0-40-3) and Suranga Wijeratne (5-0-42-1); ultimately, the 28 runs including 26 wides gifted by Pyramid Wilmer caused their downfall.
4th QF: Two good batting performances by opening batsman, Chaminda Sampath (42) and No.7 batsman, Dinesh Rajendra (47), helped A Baur & Co. put up a challenging 169 in 24.4 overs. HNB’s Asiri Hewage proved a thorn in the flesh of Baur’s, as he made early inroads into the top order and coming back later, polishing off the tail, to finish with impressive figures of 4.4-0-32-5.
HNB in reply, was in a spot of bother, losing their top order for 88 runs (88 for 5 in 11 overs) and got back on track via a 70-runs stand in 54 balls for the 6th wicket between Theekshana Dilhan (47 in 42 balls with 6 fours) and Malindu Perera (32 not out in 29 balls, with 1 six and 2 fours), thus reaching their target – 170 for 7 in 22 overs; Baur’s gave away 27 extras.
Chief Scores:
QF1: Maliban beat
DB AG by 8 wkts
DB AG- 103/9 (25 overs)
(G. Ratnayake 49; T. Siriwardena 2/19, D. Hathurusinghe 2/20 , L. Dushantha 2/23)
Maliban- 104/2 (18 overs) (T. Siriwardena 32 not out, G. Anuruddha 30)
QF 2: Avery beat
Aitken Spence by 19 runs
Avery- 128 (23.3 overs) (C. Wijeratne 35, Aruna Shantha 25, D. Dinesh 25;
N. Aponsu 2/17, V. Perera 2/22,
K. Jayasinghe 3/22)
Aitken Spence- 109/9 (25 overs)
(M. Samarasekera 30, N.T. Madushanka 29; S. Fernando 2/13, D. Dinesh 3/12)
QF 3: SLT beat Pyramid
Wilmer by 8 runs
SLT- 199/7 (25 overs) (N. Ramachandra 43, S. Jayawardena 33, D. Yukthi 30 not out, K. Bandaranayake 25, L. Ranatunga 23 not out; L. Fernando 2/37, Shanaka Fernando 5/24)
Pyramid Wilmer- 191/8 (25 overs)
(D. Nuwan 33 not out, S. Lakmal 32, B. Paul 28, A. Warnakulasuriya 21;
K. Bandaranayake 3/40,
S. Jayawardena 2/20)
QF 4: HNB ‘B’ beat
Baurs by 3 wkts.
Baurs- 169 (24.4 overs),
(D. Rajendran 47, C. Sampath 42,
J. Wanniarachchi 25; Anush Perera 2/18, Asiri Hewage 5/32)
HNB ‘B’- 170/7 (22 overs) (T. Dilshan 47, M. Perera 32 not out, N. de Silva 21, D. Panditharatne 22; J. Wanniarachchi 2/47, T. de Silva 2/40, D. Hasitha 2/28)
Semifinals scheduled
for this weekend:
Top half Semifinal: Maliban Biscuits vs Avery Dennison at MCA, yesterday morning (afternoon session kept in reserve)
Bottom half Semifinal: Sri Lanka Telecom vs HNB ‘B’ at MCA, today morning (afternoon session kept in reserve)
The Final is scheduled for Saturday, August 12 at the MCA grounds .