Rangana Herath returns but Pathirana, Milantha steal the show

Six matches of the Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) Major League tier A tournament were worked off around the island during the weekend, along with four matches of the tier B segment of the same tournament. 

Chilaw Marians and Ports Authority both recorded brilliant come-from-behind wins over two strong teams in Tamil Union and NCC respectively, while Badureliya SC and Colts Cricket Club also recorded impressive outright wins.

Thirimanne makes the bat talk; Sadeera & co set to return

Six matches of the Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) Major League…

Sachith Pathirana’s eye catching all-round efforts were the highlight of CCC’s drawn encounter against Bloomfield. He hit a career best 168 which came off just 118 balls in the first innings before following it up with another brisk 84 in the second. He also made sure CCC secured first innings points with his left arm spin yielding four crucial wickets.

Stylish left-hand bat Lahiru Milantha had been having a quiet season for Ragama CC up until last week, when he hit twin centuries against Moors SC. The young and upcoming wicket keeper batsmen who was once on the selectors radar, showed his repertoire of strokes in a match where he amassed 262 runs on his own. The other notable performances in the game were a match bag of 8 wickets for the returning left arm spinner Amila Aponso and a century for the opposing skipper Chamara Silva, as Ragama CC registered a first innings win over Moors SC.

Nadras Prasad starred with a five-wicket haul in Badureliya SC’s opening win of the tournament which came in their 5th match against Army SC.

None of the batsmen reached the three-figure mark when Colts took on Saracens during the weekend but Roshan Jayatissa and Chathura Randunu starred with five wicket hauls for the losing Saracens SC unit, while the highlight of the match was Dilruwan Perera’s five wicket haul which enabled him to reach the magical double of 7000 runs and 700 wickets in first class cricket, becoming the first Sri Lankan to achieve the feat.

The pendulum kept swinging both ways in one of the most epic games during the 2017/18 season, before Chanaka Komasaru’s 7 wickets in the second innings made sure Ports Authority had just 220 runs to chase in the 4th innings (after trailing by 99 runs in the first innings), which they did for the loss of six wickets. Komasaru also picked up his 500th first class wicket in the process as he bowled Ports Authority to victory against a star studded NCC line up. Chathuranga De Silva who missed out on selection for the tri-series in Bangladesh captured six wickets in the first innings for NCC.

Chilaw Marians registered their 4th outright win and made sure they qualified for the super 8s as group leaders in group B with one match still to go. All eyes were on Rangana Herath who turned up for his club Tamil Union after a lengthy duration, but they ended up on the losing side despite Herath picking up five wickets in the match. The star performer for Chilaw Marians once again was Oshada Fernando who hit twin half centuries in the match and has hit 545 runs in 5 games, while he is placed second on the most run scorers list this season behind Tamil Union’s Manoj Sarathchandra who has 553 runs in six games.

Air Force SC continued to take the tier B segment by storm as they crushed the much fancied Panadura SC unit by an innings and 97 runs in their own backyard. Panadura SC were shot out for 36 in their second innings which was also the third lowest score in Sri Lankan first class cricket, as Milan Rathnayake (5/36) and Shohan Rangika (4/00) started with ball to make sure Air Force SC stayed on top with three matches remaining.

Matheesha Perera, Eranga Ratnayake, Chanaka Wijesinghe and Kusal Edusuriya hit centuries in the tier B segment during the weekend as the other three games ended with no results. Gayan Sirisoma was the star with the ball capturing a seven-wicket haul while Keshan Wijeratne, Nimesh Vimukthi and Shohan Rangika also captured five wicket hauls.

The CCC vs Saracens encounter this weekend will be very crucial as both teams are vying for a place in the Super Eight stage. You can catch the live action of this three-day encounter starting on the 19th of January on ThePapare.com, Dialog TV channel no.1 and Dialog MyTV.