National Super League Final

The curtain of the National Super League Provincial four day cricket tournament will come down with the final battle for supremacy between Dambulla and Galle scheduled to be played from tomorrow at the Galle International Stadium.

The two teams made it to the final with Dambulla recording an outright win by 132 runs over Jaffna and Galle registering a first innings win against Kandy. Incidentally Kandy and Jaffna were the champions and runners-up of the previous edition.

The encounter is no doubt going to be a closely contested affair but on paper Galle led by Sangeeth Cooray deputising for Ramesh Mendis who is on national duty with the Sri Lanka teams tour to New Zealand who ended as the table leaders seems to have the edge as they have prevailed against Dambulla whom they defeated by an innings in a league encounter played in the early stages of the tournament while Dambulla led by Minod Bhanuka will no doubt be seeking to take revenge for their defeat.

Looking at the strength of the sides Galle will pin their hopes in the batting on skipper Cooray, Lakshan Edirisinghe, Sohan de Livera, and Pasindu Sooriyabandara who all are centurions and Suminda Lakshan.

Sooriyabandara is in top form as he slammed a career best unbeaten knock of 214 against Jaffna in the semi-final encounter last week while the bowling will be their foursome attack of Wanindu Hasaranga, Kavishka Anjula, Asanka Manoj and Mohamed Shiraz from whom they will be expecting a lot.

On the other hand Dambulla will bank on skipper Bhanuka who has a to score of 186, Pavan Ratnayake, Ashan Priyanjan, Gayan Maneeshan to guide them along with Sanoj Dharshika, Lahiru Samarakoon and Dushan Hemantha who will also be expected to spearhead the bowling along with Chalana de Silva and Priyanjan.

However Dambulla sans there two key players Asitha Fernando and Vishwa Fernando and with Galle missing out on skipper Ramesh Mendis it’s left to be seen whether Dambulla seeking to take revenge will be able to achieve it feat and brush off the challenge of the strong Galle side. By M. Shamil Amit