Trinity College powered their way to a resounding innings and 72 runs outright victory over Nalanda College in a high profile inter school Under-19 cricket tournament match which concluded at the Asgiriya Stadium in Kandy yesterday.
This was in fact Trinity’s second successive outright victory for the current season following their triumph against St. Aloysius College Galle last week at the same venue and this time they performed even better while adding the finishing touches with more than a session to spare.
The Trinitians simply underlined their superiority on the field while bundling out their opponents for the second time in the match for a mere 84 runs with the Nalanda innings lasting for just 25.3 overs.
The Trinity bowling attack certainly looked outstanding and they never allowed the opposition batsmen to settle down or to build up any kind of partnership while capturing wickets at regular intervals.
In fact Nalanda’s hopes of at least saving the match was completely shattered when they slumped to a disappointing 31 for 4 wickets inside the first ten overs of the innings against some top class spin bowling.
Off spinner Raveen Sayer went on to add three more wickets to his tally in the second innings thus giving him a matchbag of nine wickets and there were plenty of support from Amrith Srimahan, Charith Sudaraka and Chatura Jayasundera.
The only significant contribution for the Nalandians in the second innings came from their opening batsman Pramud Hettiwatta and all rounder Woshantha Silva with both players making a desperate attempt to extend their innings as much as possible.
Earlier Trinity College ensured that they would not bat for the second time in the match by rattling up an imposing 303 runs for six wickets and extending their first innings lead to a commanding 156 runs.
Middle order batsman Chatura Jayasundera went on to hit a top score of 83 runs but his overnight partner Madawa Munaweera missed out a well deserved half century by just two runs.
However useful contributions from Ron Chandraguptha (37) and Kaveen Ekanayake (22) during the latter stages ensured that Trinity College would get pass the three hundred run mark which turned out to be a match winning total at the end.
Nalanda: 147 (Senura Amarasinghe 25, Dasun Seneviratne 33, Raveen Sayer 6/49, Charith Sudaraka 2/42) and 84 (Pramud Hettiwatta 25, Woshantha Silva 22, Amrith Srimahan 3/23, Raveen Sayer 3/12, Charith Sudaraka 2/34, Chatura Jayasundera 2/8)
Trinity: 303-6 decl (Kaveen Hiniduma 50, Nushan Weerasinghe 36, Chatura Jayasundera 83, Madawa Munaweera 48, Ron Chandraguptha 37, Kaveen Ekanayake 22, Woshantha Silva 2/61)
