Kiwis champs but not without a fright from Sri Lanka
By Lakshman Ranasinghe
Sri Lanka Indoor Cricket team with their trophy in Singapore
The Sri Lanka (SL) Indoor Cricket team after excellent performances in the preliminary and knockout rounds, disappointingly went down to New Zealand (NZ) in the finals to end 2nd best in the New Zealand- Asia Cup Indoor Cricket tournament concluded on April 6, at the Indoor Premier Cricket Stadium, Singapore.
Seven teams from 6 nations participated, with host nation Singapore fielding two teams, while the other teams were SL, India, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and NZ.
SL, after comfortably winning 6 out of 7 matches in the preliminary rounds, went down only to strong NZ 91/64. SL qualified for the finals with a one-sided win over the UAE in the semifinals.
SL had the distinction of defeating India, a strong contender to win the League championship round in a close match 53/67.
Two teams tipped to play in the finals were India and NZ. In the 2nd semifinals, India had no answer to the well balanced Kiwi attack, as the Indian batters found run getting an almost impossible task. NZ didn’t find things that tough as they knocked out the Indians 95/52.
NZ, with a fine record in the series, having entered the finals on 3 consecutive occasions, only to be out done by Australia, faced a bunch of energetic cricketers from SL. The Kiwis had to pull every trick out of their bag, as SL’s last pair almost got them over the winning line, falling by just 11 runs.
Finalists SL and NZ made use of the experience they gained from the recently concluded Australasia Cup, where they competed against World Champions Australia, making the finals a tightly contested affair.
On their way to the semifinals, SL beat Singapore 78/67, Singapore ‘A’ 143/76, UAE 91/44, Malaysia 92/25, India 67/53.
League Stage Points table:
NZ 38, SL 31, UAE 27, India 23, Singapore 17, Singapore ‘A’ 10 and Malaysia 00.
Semi-final I: SL beat UAE 68/30
Semi-final II: NZ beat India 95/52
Final: NZ beat SL 71/60