The 59th Battle of the Brothers annual Big Match encounter between Thurstan College and Isipathana College began today at the SSC grounds. Thurstan Skipper Bawantha Jayasinghe won the toss and elected to bat first on a greenish track under overcast conditions.
The Isipathana seam bowlers took maximum use of the conditions early in the day before the Thurstan lower order batters put up a tremendous fight to take them over the 200-run mark. For Thurstan College, Vihas Thevmika was the highest scorer with a calm and composed knock of 39. Shanikya Devapriya also shined for a brief period with his counterattacking cameo of 38 off 44 deliveries.
However, the most interesting passage of play for Thurstan came in the form of their final pair, Thanuga Palihawadana(24) and Ranga Rasanka(18), who batted out 154 deliveries and scored 42 runs together. That partnership managed to bring out some concern at the Isipathana camp, and took out valuable time from the encounter as well.
The Skipper for Isipathana, Thinula Liyanage, who was accurate with his bowling changes and field placements throughout the day, made a slight error against the last pair by bowling part-time bowlers, which gave them ample time to settle.
For Isipathana College, it was all about the quick bowlers. Nikil Sahasmika and Kevin Samuel who bowled in tandem at the start of the day, reduced Thurstan to 32 for 5 at the end of the first hour. Though Nikil was unable to take any more wickets after that, Samuel continued to pick up wickets at regular intervals to take 6 for 52. He became the first Isipathana bowler to take a 6-wicket haul in the annual encounter after 12 years, and became the 6th Isipathana bowler overall to take 6 wickets or more in the encounter.
The highlight from the Pathana pace bowling combination of Nikil and Samuel is how they utilized the new ball to gain some movement off the pitch at the start, and with the ball getting old, the way in which they used the short delivery to bounce out batters.
Isipathana had to bat for 10 overs before the end of play and they lost the wicket of Naveen Kanishka, before Tharusha Nethsara and Yesith Kalupahama took them safely to stumps with a scoreline of 31 for 1.
The live action of Day 2 in the 59th Battle of the Brothers is scheduled to commence tomorrow at 9.40 AM. With 105 overs left in the match, both the teams still have a chance to force a result.
