Oshada, Sahan, Pulina steer Kandy to fifth win

Oshada Fernando in action

By M. Shamil Amit

Oshada Fernando continued his rich batting form combining with Sahan Arachchige and Pulina Tharanga to steer Kandy to a convincing six-wicket win over Colombo in a high-scoring second round match of the National Super League Limited Over cricket tournament played at the Pallekele International Stadium yesterday.
The trio’s useful contributions helped Kandy in pursuit of a formidable run chase of 272, reach the target in the 49th over.

Fernando, who made an unbeaten 85 in 94 balls inclusive of six boundaries, was involved in partnerships of 128, for the fourth wicket with Arachchige and 54, for the fifth wicket with Tharanga.

Earlier, Nuwanindu Fernando top scored for Colombo with 112 in 133 balls with seven boundaries and a six, to help his team to a challenging score of 271 but it proved in vain with Kandy reaching the target with seven balls to spare, to record their fifth win of the tournament.

Winless Dambulla meanwhile, chalked up their first win of the tournament with a comfortable five-wicket win over Galle in the low scoring match played at the Rangiri Dambulla Stadium.

Spinner Duvindu Tilekaratne took four wickets which, with the support of skipper Ashan Priyanjan, enabled Dambulla to bowl out Galle for a low score of 125 runs, losing their last five wickets for the addition of just 32 runs.
Dambulla in their run chase, thanks to an unbroken 53 runs for the sixth wicket between Dushan Hemantha and Sameera Sandamal, reached the target with minimum fuss in the 25th over.  

Results:

At Pallekele – Kandy won by six wickets
Colombo 271 in 49.3 overs (Nuwanindu Fernando 112, Sammu Ashan 62, Dimuth Karunaratne 29, Ashen Bandara 20, Sithara Gimhan 18: Asitha Fernando for 41, Pulina Tharanga 3 for 66)
Kandy 272 for 4 in 48.5 overs (Sahan Arachchige 64, Lahiru Udara 34, Kaveen Bandara 25, Niroshan Dickwella 16, Oshada Fernando 85 n.o., Pulina Tharanga 32 n.o.: Lahiru Madusanka 2 for 34)
At Dambulla – Dambulla won by five wickets
Galle 125 in 33.4 overs (Himasha Liyanage 29, Priyamal Perera 16: Duvindu Tilekeratne 4 for 21, Ashan Priyanjan 2 for 10)
Dambulla 126 for 5 in 24.5 overs (Ashan Priyanjan 31, Sameera Sandamal 26 n.o., Dushan Hemantha 28 n.o., Sameera Sandamal 26 n.o.)