By: M. Shamil Amit

Colombo, Mar. 8 (Daily Mirror) - Skipper Sineth Jayawardena and Ovina Ambanpola came to the rescue of Royal College on day two of the 145th Battle of the Blues Big Inter-School Match against the traditional rivals S. Thomas’ College continued at the SSC Grounds in Maitland Place.

Royal in reply to S. Thomas’ first innings score of 297, fell into deep trouble when they lost their openers Isula Geeganage and Rehan Peiris with the score on one in the third over.

However, Sineth and Ovina rescued Royal as they went into lunch break at 79 for 2 with the former having reached his half century.

The post lunch session saw the pair posting their 100-run stand and 26 runs later opening bowler Ashen Perera made the breakthrough for the Thomians when he separated the pair with the wicket of Ovina who made 36.

Three runs later, Royal lost their fourth wicket but thereafter, Sineth was joined by Ramiru Perera and they shared a brief stand of 34 runs for the fifth wicket.

With the score on 164 for four Royal suffered a double blow as they lost two wickets at the same score.

Dinura Senaratne and Nethwin Dharmaratne put in a stiff resistance and succeeded to put on a valuable stand of 69 runs for the seventh wicket.

But Dinura became the fourth victim of Ashen as Royal ended day two with a score of 234 for seven, still trailing by 63 runs.

Scoreboard

S. Thomas’ 1st innings 297

Royal 1st innings

I. Geeganage lbw b A. Perera 00

R. Peiris b Fernando 01

S. Jayawardena c and b Diego 92

O. Ambanpola c and b A. Perera 36

Y. Dissanayake b Diego 01

R. Perera lbw b A. Perera 23

D. Senaratne c Soysa b A. Perera 33

N. Dharmaratne not out 29

B. Weeratunga not out 01

Extras: (b7, lb6, nb4, w1) 18

Total: (For 7 wickets in 86 overs) 234

Fall: 1-1, 2-1, 3-127, 4-130, 5-164, 6-164, 7-233

Bowling: A. Fernando 7-3-30-1, A. Perera 26-8-51-4, N. Caldera 14-3-37-0, K. Dias 8-0-22-0, A. Paranavidana 9-1-22-0, D. Diego 19-4-35-2, D. Goonewardena 2-0-14-0, M. Perera 1-0-10-0. 

Pix by: Kushan Pathiraja