St. Joseph’s, Royal cruise to final

Under-19 Division I Tier ‘A’ Semi Finals

by Reemus Fernando

St. Joseph’s beat the daylights out of Trinity with a clinical ten wicket win and Royal disappointed century maker Pavan Ratnayake with a six wickets win over Mahanama in the Under-19 Division I Tier ‘A’ semi-finals played on Wednesday.

St. Joseph’s continued their remarkable rise during the knockout stage as their batting openers Sadeesh Jayawardena and Sheran Fonseka knocked off the win need without being parted after bowlers contained Trinity to 160 runs at the Surrey Village ground.

Fonseka was unbeaten on 93 (116 balls, 10x4s) and Jayawardena was not out on 62 (98 balls, 5x4s) when they reached the target with 14 overs to spare. The stage for victory was however set by their bowlers, paceman Mithira Thenura, captain Dunith Wellalage and Shenuka de Silva.

Thenura dealt a severe blow to Trinity’s aspirations when he took two wickets in his second over. When Deshan Senaviratne and Shenuka de Silva accounted for the next two wickets Trinity had only 21 runs on the board. While Shenuka de Silva took two wickets, Wellalage and Thenura took three wickets each. Trinity had a fruitful 100 run partnership for the fifth wicket between Pawan Pathiraja and Akram Muthalib but some accurate bowling by Wellalage and Thenura prevented acceleration of the run rate during the final overs. While Wellalage grabbed two wickets in the final over, Thenura took a remarkable diving catch off his own bowling in his final over.

In the other semi-final, a century by Pavan Rathnayake (114 in 150 balls, 3x4s, 4x6s) was in vain for Mahanama as Royal reached a target of 210 runs for the loss of four wickets with three overs to spare. Sadisha Rajapaksha scored an unbeaten 85 runs and put on a third wicket stand of 116 runs with opener Sehan Herath who scored 62 runs. Sonal Amarasekara with three wickets was the pick of the bowlers.

Now Royal will meet St. Joseph’s in the Division I Tier ‘A’ final at the NCC Ground on Saturday.

Results

Royal beat Mahanama by six wickets at Moratuwa

Mahanama

209 for 8 in 50 overs (Pavan Rathnayake 114, Vinuka Rubasinghe 33; Sonal Amarasekara 3/29)

Royal

210 for 4 in 47 overs (Sehan Herath 62, Sadisha Rajapaksha 85n.o., Ahan Wickramasinghe 27)

St. Joseph’s beat Trinity by ten wickets at Maggona

Trinity

160 all out in 49.4 overs (Pawan Pathiraja 61, Akram Muthalib 49; Mithira Thenura 3/26, Shenuka de Silva 2/30, Dunith Wellalage 3/32)

St. Joseph’s

161 for no loss in 35.4 overs (Sadeesh Jayawardana 62n.o., Sheran Fonseka 93n.o.)