Himesh Jayaratne stroked a masterful 75 for Wesley College despite an impressive bowling effort by Yohan Soyza of St. Benedicts College in their inter-school match which began at St. Benedict’s grounds, Kotahena, today.
His half century was of class give the alien conditions with which he had to bat on as bowlers exploited home conditions to their maximum advantage.
Wesley taking the first lease of the wicket were bowled out for 189 runs when Soyza ran through the innings with a five wicket haul but Jayaratne stood tall with a fighting half century to bring some respectability to their innings which would otherwise a disaster. Tharindu Karunaratne was the next top scorer with a painstaking 25 runs. Sithum Wijesinghe claimed 2 for 14 while Geethika Jayatilake also took two scalps for 38 runs.
In reply St. Benedict’s were 38 for the loss of one wicket with Mahel Jayalath was unbeaten on 23.
With a day to go, hosts would be looking at erasing the first innings deficit of 151 as fast as possible to record at least a first inning win.
Wesley: 189 in 73.1 overs (Himesh Jayaratne 75, Tharindu Karunaratne 25, A. Parais 18, T. Jebeseelan 17, Yohan Soyza 5/42, Sithum Wijesinghe 2/14, Geethika Jayatileke 2/38)
St. Benedict’s: 38/1 in 9.2 overs (Mahel Jayalath 23 n.o.)
