National Super League Colombo, Kandy, Galle, Jaffna advance to semis

Jaffna’s Nuwan Pradeep celebrates with teammates

By M. Shamil Amit

The league matches of the National Super Provincial cricket tournament came to an end yesterday with the last match of the tournament between Jaffna and Dambulla concluded at the Rangiri Dambulla Stadium ending in a first-inning win for Jaffna.

With the completion of the matches, Colombo, who came out on top in the table points with 56.51 and second-placed Kandy who got 42.24, booked their berths to the semifinals together with Galle and Jaffna.
The final day’s play saw Jaffna, resuming from their overnight score of 354/7, going on to make 379 runs and Dambulla, batting the second time, made a score of 256/9 before declaring. With a victory target of 161 runs, Jaffna ended the day on 62/2.

At Dambulla – First inning win for Jaffna

Dambulla 283 (Lasith Abeyratne 68, Minod Bhanuka 53, Chamindu Wijesinghe 35, Leo Fransisco 24, Nimesha Gunasinghe 17, Dushan Hemantha 63 n.o.; Nuwan Pradeep 7/52) and 256/9 declared (Ashan Priyanjan 62, Minod Bhanuka 48, Leo Frnasiscon 46, Nimesha Gunasinghe 35, Lasith Abeyratne 26; Dhananjaya de Silva 3/44, Janith Liyanage 2/26, Jeffrey Vandersay 2/63, Dilum Sudeera 2/87)

Jaffna (354/7 overnight) 379 (Nishan Madushka 69, Janith Liyanage 69, Saminda Fernando 52, Avishka Tharindu 40, Dilim Sudeera 32, Navod Paranavithana 26, Geeth Kumara 26, Dhananjaya de Silva 25, Nipun Malinga 17; Vishwa Fernando 4/66, Malinda Pushpakumara 4/131) and 62/2 (Nishan Madushka 32 n.o., Dhananjaya de Silva 23 n.o.; Malinda Pushpakumara 2/20)