The curtain of the Bank of Ceylon Inter-Provincial limited over tournament will come down with the battle for supremacy between MAS Kandurata and Hirdaramani Ruhuna scheduled to be played at De Zoysa Stadium in Moratuwa today.

The two teams booked their berth to the final with Kandurata recording a convincing nine wicket win over Wayamba and Ruhuna overcoming Basnahira South by 39 runs in the two semi finals played on Friday.
The two teams are well balanced and are oozing with the cream of players being national stars.

andurata will be led by Sri Lanka skipper Kumar Sangakkara and Ruhuna by in form national opener Upul Tharanga. Kandurata will no doubt come into the game to avenge their four run defeat to Ruhuna in the round robin match played two weeks ago while the lads from the South will go all out to lay their hands on the first ever inter-provincial limited over trophy. Kandurata of course will be coming into the game with confidence after their fine performance while Ruhuna cannot be satisfied with their performance in the semi final encounter.

Nevertheless Ruhuna has experienced opening combination in skipper Upul Tharanga and Sanath Jayasuriya. But their approach will have to be more positive if they are to give Kandurata a challenge today.
Their middle order has been unable to make any impression with the only exception being in the match against wooden-spoonists SLC Combined XI where they posted their highest score of 293.

They will be expecting the out-of-form Sanath Jayasuriya who beside his knock of 87 against SLC Combined XI did not make any worth while knocks thereafter to put in a match winning effort.
They have only three batsmen who have been scores of over fifty runs with skipper Tharanga being the best of the trio. Indika de Saram like Tharanga is the other who hit two half tons.

Ruhuna will be expecting their bowling trio Lasith Malinga, Sachitra Senanayake and Tharanga Lakshitha to be on fire along with spinners Sanath Jayasuriya, Sajeewa Weerakoon and T.N. Sampath to support them. Kandurata on the other hand posses a strong batting line up and they have been consistent. The side has two centurions in Kaushalya Weeraratne and Tharanga Paranavithana. Kaushalya is their top batsman who has scored over 350 runs which also includes two half tons.

They have five batsmen in the caliber of Jeewan Mendis who has two half tons along with Chinthaka Jayasinghe, Thilan Samaraweera, Chamara Kapugedera and skipper Sangakkara who has yet to get into his stride. Nevertheless they are going to be a threat for the Ruhuna bowlers.

Kandurata’s bowling too has the ammunition to restrict the Ruhuna batting spearheaded by Muralitharan with support from Suraj Randiv, Dilhara Fernando, Seekuge Prasanna, Chaminda Vidanapathirana and Jeewan Mendis.

Nevertheless with the cream of Sri Lanka’s cricketers in action from both sides there is no doubt it’s going to be a closely fought contest worth going to witness all the way.