Under 19 Cricket
by Reemus Fernando
St. Anthony’s College, Katugastota registered historic innings and 79 runs victory over Ananda College Colombo as spinner Kaveesha Piyumal completed a match-bag of ten wickets in the Under 19 traditional cricket encounter which concluded before tea at Ananda Mawatha on Tuesday.
St. Anthony’s officials told The Island that the victory was their first outright win against the Colombo powerhouse since 1949. “This is the 92nd encounter between the two teams. The last time St. Anthony’s beat Ananda was in 1949,” Lenin Jayasinghe the Master in Charge of cricket of St. Antony’s College said.
St. Anthony’s have done well against Ananda under the guidance of their coach Suneth Gunethilaka, taking first innings honours on more than one occasion but an outright victory had eluded them until yesterday.
Kaveesha Piyumal
The stage for the historic victory was set up by Kaveesha Piyumal and Induwara Galapitage who reduced the home team to 56 for eight wickets at stumps on day one. The tail-enders fought back by adding 50 runs for the last two wickets, but when they were forced to follow on, the team captained by Methma Samaraweera, crumbled against Piyumal’s spin. Vilash Karunaratne who cracked 45 runs in 28 balls was the only batsman to reach double figures.
Piyumal who took five wickets including back-to-back wickets in the sixth over gave away just 24 runs in his ten overs. Charuka Ekanayake took three wickets for five runs.
For the winners, Mohomed Aaqil (73) and Kavindu Shehan (46) gave an ideal start adding 90 runs for the first wicket after they decided to bat first. Skipper Lahiru Abeysinghe cracked less than a run-a-ball 47 runs to boost their score.
Scores:
St. Anthony’s
268 all out in 54 overs (Mohomed Aaqil 73, Kavindu Shehan 46, Lahiru Abeysinghe 47, Rayan Anthonyzs 27, Janith Rathnasiri 36, Charuka Ekanayake 21; Kithma Sithmal 3/86, Ashinsa Nainayake 2/57, Ayesh Shashimal 5/40)
Ananda
56 for 8 overnight 106 all out in 47 overs (Ashinsa Nainayake 19, Isuru Ayesh 35n.o.; Kaveesha Piyumal 5/38, Induwara Galapitage 2/18) and 83 all out in 24 overs (Vilash Karunaratne 45; Kaveesha Piyumal 5/24, Charuka Ekanayake 3/05)