Uvindu consolidates Royal innings 

143rd Battle of the Blues 

by Reemus Fernando

Uvindu Weerasekara scored an unbeaten half century to lead Royal’s reply after speedsters restricted S. Thomas’ to 242 runs on day two of the 143rd Battle of the Blues at the SSC ground on Friday.Royal were 136 for four wickets when bad light forced an early end to the second day’s play.Weerasekara took the duty of repairing early damages on his shoulders after Kavindu Dias rocked them taking two quick wickets in a fiery opening burst.

Weerasekara first added a vital 58 run stand for the third wicket with Sineth Jayawardena before stumps unbeaten on 62.

His valuable knock included nine fours. He had faced 92 balls for his knock. His innings became crucial after key batsman  Sadisha Rajapaksa became one of Dias’ victims at an early stage.At stumps Ramiru Perera was keeping him company scoring nine runs.

Earlier, commencing from the overnight score S. Thomas’ added 35 runs to the total thanks largely to a laboured knock of 33 runs by Mahith Perera. He faced 83 balls before becoming the third victim of Gishan Balasooriya who was the pick of the bowlers.Royal pacemen who could not extract much from the favourable conditions on day one morning did well to mop up the Thomian tail yesterday. Sandesh Ramanayake was impressive taking two of the wickets to fall, while Bulan Weeratunga bowled Caniston Gunaratnam for three runs.