It looked a belter of a track for batting and Richmond skipper Dhananjaya Lakshan won the toss and elected to field first to make use of the early start and whatever moisture available on the pitch.
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It was he himself who ripped through the Thomian top order with an excellent opening spell of seam and swing bowling as he captured the first five wickets to fall to leave the boys from Mount Lavinia reeling at 64/5.
“I think restricting them to 221 on this pitch was a brilliant effort from my bowlers. We were always confident of getting this target at the innings break” said Dhananjaya Lakshan, the captain of Richmond College, Galle.
It looked like the Thomians were all at sea against the pace of Lakshan before skipper Dellon Pieris joined Shalin De Mel, to show why the Thomians came this far in the tournament. The duo put on 81 runs for the sixth before De Mel fell for a dodged half century while another quick wicket left the Thomians in a spot of bother once again at 145/7.
Skipper Pieris, who made an unbeaten half century continued to take the fight to the Richmond bowlers, but it was Maneesha Rupasinghe who added the much needed impetus to the Thomian innings with an unbeaten 45* which came off just 34 balls, as they reached 221/7 in their allotted 50 overs.
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Richmond lost two quick wickets including the prized scalp of Kamindu Mendis at the start of their run chase as the Thomians’ fight back in to the game continued. Just about when you thought Dhananjaya Lakshan was done for the day, he put up a grand show with the bat stroking the ball to all parts of the ground in Bambalapitiya.
His initial partnership of 109 with Thaveesha Abishek(36) for the third wicket laid the foundation for the run chase, before he put on another useful partnership of 65 runs with Dilum Sudeera.
Brother of Kamindu, Sandun Mendis came and went but nothing stopped the confident man from down south Dhananjaya Lakshan as he went on his merry way to eventually remain unbeaten on 130* and guide his team to an emphatic five wicket win and a place in the final against St. Peter’s.
“I am extremely happy with my all-round performance but the credit must be given to the whole team as without their support I could not achieve such feats. This was just a dream performance -probably my best all round effort in my schooling career – for me and my focus is now on the final against the Peterites and we’ll definitely play our hearts out and give them a stiff challenge” said a jubilant Lakshan.
The Peterites came from no where to beat Mahinda College in the first semi-final played a couple of days back by a slender margin of ten runs.
