Four wickets for Duvindu Tilekeratne and Raveen Sayer saw the Royal second innings crumble to 202 runs as Trinity College registered a celebrative innings and single run win against age old rivals Royal College after a long wait of two years.
The Trinity-Royal cricketing encounter dates back to the early 1900’s when the two schools came together for a friendly cricketing fixture. Royal College made their way to Asgiriya with hopes of a third consecutive outright win against their counterparts after having won the past two years outright.
Winning the toss, the Royal skipper Geeshanth Pandithraratne opted to bat first at Asgiriya. The Royal batsmen struggled but were able to come to a formidable 199 runs in their first innings. Top scoring for the side was Malith Kariyawasam with 42 runs and Naveen Vithanapathirana scored 40. Skipper Raveen Sayer led the bowling department from the front as he picked up another five wicket haul as Trinity had 200 to chase to avoid a 1st innings loss.
Photo Album – Trinity College vs Royal College – U19 School Cricket 2015/2016
Trinity came out to bat in the second session of the first day and with a solid partnership built around their top order players, Trinity were 192/2 overnight within contention of a 1st innings win.
As play continued to the next day, Trinity upped their run scoring pace as they declared their first innings 403/8. Opening batsman Nushan Weerasinghe scored a well earned century followed by Shanogeeth Shanmuganathan who scored 73 in a crucial partnership. Top scoring batsman Dilan Jayalath scored 84. Lasitha Embuldeniya picked up 3 wickets on the Asigirya pitch.
With a deficit in the first innings, Royal came out to bat for a second time and despite the fact that they raced to 202 runs, wickets kept falling. Naveen Vidanapathirana was the key, leading the Royal rescue mission scoring 98 runs and Pasindu Sooriyabandara contributed with 65. Royal’s 202 score was a run short to avoid an innings loss but unfortunately the tail-enders could not take them beyond.
Royal folded for 202 as Duvindu Tilekeratne picked six wickets and Raveen Sayer took down four under his name as his team concluded the Royal onslaught.
This would be consoling news for the Trinity camp having lost their quarterfinal game to St. Peter’s and the Royalists with less than a fortnight to go for the big match will look at working on their mistakes to perform better.
Chief scores:
Royal College, Colombo 199 (49.2)
Malith Kariywasam 42, Naveen Vidanapathirana 40, Raveen Sayer 5/65, S Shanogeeth 2/17
202 (66.4)
Naveen Vidanapathirana 98, Pasindu Sooriyabandara 65, Duvindu Thilakarathne 6/54, Raveen Sayer 4/64
Trinity College 403/8 d (72)
Nushan Weerasinghe 112, S Shanogeeth 73, Dilan Jayalath 84, Shavindu Amarasinghe 40, Lasith Embuldeniya 3/139, Himesh Ramanayaka 2/28
