Declaration was to try and win the game – Chandimal

Army captain Dinesh Chandimal conceded that he opted to declare the innings when he had a chance to go onto score the highest First Class score by a Sri Lankan in a bid to win his team’s Premier League match against Saracens.

The former Sri Lanka captain shifted to Army this season having spent more than a decade with NCC.

Leading a young side, he reached 354 not out to go past Kithruwan Vithanage’s record for the highest individual score in domestic cricket in Sri Lanka.

There was plenty of time left in the game for Chandimal to have a crack at his first captain Mahela Jayawardene’s record for the highest score by a Sri Lankan in First Class cricket but he decided against it. Jayawardene scored 375 in a Test match against South Africa at the SSC in 2006.

“We are in the process of rebuilding cricket at Army and I thought to try and win the game outright. Had we done that, we would have finished fourth in the points table which would have been pretty impressive for a team like us as we do not have too many prominent players,” Chandimal told The Island.

In the end, Chandimal’s effort was in vain. Army were able to enforce the follow on after bowling out Saracens for 259. But they were only able to take five second innings wickets as the game ended at FTZ grounds yesterday. Army collected 12 points from the game compared to Saracens two. They finished sixth in the points table.

As for Chandimal, he completed 1000 runs for the season at an average of 96 to become the second highest run getter in Premier League.

CCC finished top of the table with four wins followed by NCC who recorded two wins.

Sri Lanka Cricket has announced that there will be no promotions and relegation this season in the Premier League as the outbreak of COVID 19 pandemic postponed the Premier League competition by several months.