Off spinner Raveen Sayer continued his dream run with the ball as Trinity College took a firm grip over Nalanda College on the opening day of their high profile inter school Under-19 cricket tournament match which began at the Asgiriya Stadium in Kandy today.
The Sri Lanka youth cap continued from where he left after the previous outing against St. Aloysius College Galle with another outstanding spell of bowling to bundle out the opposition for just 147 runs in the first innings.
Raveen Sayer who had a matchbag of twelve wickets last week in the game against St. Aloysius College once again came into the limelight with his consistency and accuracy as the Nalandians struggled to put up a decent score on the board after having won the toss and elected to bat first.
In fact the visitors lost half of their side for just over one hundred runs with Raveen Sayer striking very early in the innings by capturing three vital wickets during his opening spell and then came back later to wrap up the innings and to add the finishing touches in style.
The Nalanda innings were always in shatters from the beginning with only Senura Amarasinghe (25) and Dasun Seneviratne (33) putting up any resistance against the deadly spin of Raveen Sayer who had excellent support from his spin partner Charith Sudaraka.
Trinity College then batted themselves into a strong position while reaching a formidable 196 runs for the loss of just two wickets as they built up a good first innings lead in an attempt to register their second successive victory for the current season.
The home side made the perfect start in their run chase with the openers Kaveen Hiniduma and Nushan Weerasinghe putting on a half century partnership to set the pace for a formidable first innings total.
In fact Kaveen Hiniduma had the satisfaction of completing a solid half century as he did all the hard work while negotiating the Nalanda College fast bowlers quite effectively.
The Trinity College middle order then simply consolidated their position with Jayasundera grabbing the opportunity to compile a superb unbeaten half century during the latter stages of the day.
He has already put on over fifty runs for the third wicket along with his partner Munaweera who is also heading towards making a well deserved half century for his team.
Nalanda: 147 (Senura Amarasinghe 25, Dasun Seneviratne 33, Raveen Sayer 6/49, Charith Sudaraka 2/42)
Trinity: 196-2 (Kaveen Hiniduma 50, Nushan Weerasinghe 36, C. Jayasundera 66 n. o, M. Munaweera 38 n. o)
