Mixed bag for Sri Lanka on Day 2 of Birmingham 2022

Sri Lanka secured their first medal of Birmingham 2022, while the Badminton team progressed to the quarterfinals and Milka de Silva to the finals in their respective events amidst the action on Day 2 of the Commonwealth Games 2022.

Swimming

Ganga Seneviratne swam a personal best time of 1:06.17 in the Women’s 100m Backstroke event, finishing in 20^th place overall in the preliminary round.

Read More : Debutant Ganga swims a new personal best

Artistic Gymnastics

Olympian Milka de Silva, along with Amaya Kalukottage, Kaushini Gamage and Kumudi Abeyratne competed in Subdivision 3 of the Women’s Team Final and Individual Qualification event. As a team, Sri Lanka finished 10^th overall among 11 teams, while de Silva qualified for the All-Around Final after finishing 19^th overall in the qualifications.

De Silva registered scores of 12.800 (Vault), 12.000 (Uneven Bars), 9.750 (Balance Beam) and 10.650 (Floor Exercise) to finish with a total of 45.200 to secure her place in the All-Around Final.

Amaya Kalukottage has been named as Reserve No. 4 for the event, which will feature 18 finalists. Milka is also amongst the reserve list (No. 2) in the Uneven Bars Apparatus final.

Apparatus Scores

Badminton

The badminton mixed team was completely demolished by India in their first encounter of the day, going down 5-0, but put together a brilliant comeback to seal their place in the quarterfinals, with a 4-1 win over Pakistan.

Scores v India (lost 5-0)

• Mixed Doubles – Thilini Hendehewa and Sachin Dias lost to Sairaj Rankireddy and Machimanda Ponnappa 14/21, 9/21
• Men’s Singles – Niluka Karunaratne lost to Lakshya Sen 18/21, 5/21
• Women’s Singles –Vidara Vidanage lost to Akarshi Kashya 3/21, 9/21
• Men’s Doubles – Sachin Dias and Dumindu Abeywickrama lost to Sumeeth Reddy and Chandrasekar Shetty 10/21, 13/21
• Women’s Doubles –Thilini Hendehewa and Vidara Vidanage lost to Treesha Jolly and Gayathri Pullela 18/21, 6/21

  

Scores v Pakistan (won 4-1)

• Mixed Doubles – Thilini Hendehewa and Sachin Dias beat Irfan Bhatti and Ghazala Siddique 21/9, 21/11
• Men’s Singles – Niluka Karunaratne beat Murad Ali 21/9, 21/11
• Women’s Singles –Vidara Vidanage lost to Mahoor Shahzad 20/22, 15/21
• Men’s Doubles – Sachin Dias and Niluka Karunaratne beat Irfan Bhatti and Murad Ali 21/15, 21/13
• Women’s Doubles –Thilini Hendehewa and Vidara Vidanage beat Ghazala Siddique and Mahoor Shahzad 21/15, 21/8

Cricket

Sri Lanka put England under pressure with the ball but could not pull off a win after posting just 106 on the board in their 1^st appearance at the Games. The hosts chased down the target with 5 wickets in hand and 17 deliveries remaining.

SL 106/9 (20) Nilakshi de Silva 25, Sophie Ecclestone 3/25

ENG 109/5 (17.1) Alice Capsey 44, Inoka Ranaweera 3/29

Rugby 7s

It was another winless day for the Sri Lankan Men’s and Women’s sides as both lost their final Group stage games and playoff games.

Men’s scores

• Vs Samoa 44-00
• Vs Uganda (9-16 QF 3) 38-19

Women’s scores

• Vs Canada 74-00
• Vs Scotland (5-8 SF 2) 58-00

Squash

After a promising start to their competition yesterday, the squash team suffered defeats in all of their Round of 32 fixtures on Day 2.

Ravindu Laksiri lost to Scotland’s Greg Lobban 9/11, 4/11, 10/12

Shamil wakeel lost to India’s Saurav Ghosal 4/11, 4/11, 6/11

Chanithma Sinaly lost to Canada’s Nicole Bunyan 1/11, 8/11, 4/11

Yeheni Kuruppu lost to England’s Georgiana Kennedy 1/11, 1/11, 1/11

Weightlifting

Weightlifting brought Sri Lanka the most joy on day 2, as Dilanka Kumara took home the Bronze Medal in the Men’s 55kg weight class, with a total of 225kg lifted.

Read : Dilanka Kumara lays claim to Sri Lanka’s first Medal in Birmingham

Thilanka Palangasinghe was unfortunately injured in the Men’s 61kg event and could not finish, while Srimali Divisekara finished 7^th in the Women’s 49kg (total weight lifted 152 kg) and Chamari Warnakulasuriya finished 7^th in the Women’s 55kg, with a total weight of 164kg.