S. Thomas’ College recorded their third straight win in the 10th annual Rev. A.J.C Selvaratnam Challenge Shield match against St. John’s College, Jaffna.
The Thomian Skipper Shalin de Mel said he was eyeing over 350 runs for the first-innings at the toss, to which the Johnian skipper replied saying he is hoping to keep the mighty Thomians under 150 runs. At certain points of the game, both of them looked like they were going to achieve what they said and at other times they seemed to have made a joke of themselves. That is the summary of how this game fared.
Winning the toss and batting first on a fresh green top at Mount Lavinia, the Thomians looked like visitors at their home ground during the first few hours of play. They were baffled by the 15-year-old Chinaman Jeyachandran Ashnath from Jaffna, who picked up 3 important Thomian wickets. Ashnath was the main attraction of day one as he bowled with extreme discipline and control for a wrist spinner of his age.
He helped the Johnians to restrict the host for 127 runs for 6 wickets shortly before tea on day one.
Then came a debutant from the Thomas’ camp, Vinuja Wijebandara, who went on to make his debut memorable with a match-saving knock of 71 runs. Vinuja came in at No.7 and partnered with Senash Hettiarachi, who scored an unbeaten 51 runs to wear off the visiting bowling unit for the rest of day one before the play was suspended due to bad light.
The Thomians declared the innings overnight with the score at 241 for 7.
Beyond this point it was just batsmen walking in and out of St. John’s camp as the Thomian left-arm spinner Manith Perera ran havoc in their line-up.
Being one of the six debutants in this game for S. Thomas’, Manith recorded a magnificent 10-wicket haul, which helped his alma mater to seal an innings and 36-run victory. The visitors were bundled out twice before tea on day two for scores of 61 and 145 respectively.
