It was bright and sunny for most of the day and despite cloudy skies the quarter moon was visible after dusk on the12th day of the 17th Asian Games.
The Men’s Cricket team led by Lahiru Thirimaanne beat hosts South Korea by 117 runs in their quarter final. Put into bat Sri Lanka hit out to a commanding 91/1 after 10 overs and closed at 172/8 in 20 overs.Vice Captain Upul Tharanga 54 with 8 fours and Dinesh Chandimal 83 with3 sixers and 6 fours were involved in an entertaining 126 run stand for the 2nd wicket.The last 4 wickets fell for just 5 runs .Taekwan Park captured 4/i6 incuding 3 wickets in the last over of the innings.Jiwan Choi and Kyunsik Kim claimed 2 wickets each.South Korea were never in the hunt and folded up meekily to be all out for 55 runs in 16.4 overs.Kyunsik Kim top scored with 12.Chaturanga De Silva was the most succesful bowler with figures of 3/08.Kosala Kulasekera,Isuru Udana and Jeevan Mendis each took a couple of wickets. In the semi=final the most likely opponents will be Bangladesh who are at full strength.
In Men’s Sevens Rugby, Sri Lanka playing in Group C won both matches. They won against Chinese Taipei 24-07 after leading 10 -00 at half time.Dhanushka Ranjan scored 2 tries while Shehan Pathirana,Skipper Fazil Marija and Mithun Hapugodage fell over once each. 02 tries were converted. In the other game against Lebanon it was one way traffic.as Sri Lanka ran circles aroud the opponents to record a 54-00 victory.The half time score was 26-00.Anuruddha Wilwara effected 3 touch downs. Mithun Hapugodage 2 and Srinath Sooriyabandara,Fazil Marija and Dinusha Fernando scored one each. Seven tries were converted. Today the other group match is with South Korea.
In Athletics,Chandrika Subhashini Rasnayake ran a Personal Best 23 59 seconds to qualify for the Final tommorrow.She ran in Lane 3 and finished 3rd in the2nd Heat of the 1st Round.Meanwhile, Gayanthika Abeyratne in Lane 5 was placed 2nd in the 1st Heat of round one. She qualified for the final with a personal best time of 2 mts 04.41 seconds.in the Women’s 800 M. In the Men’s Long Jump final Janaka Wimalasiri cleared 7.22 M but finished 13th out of17.In the Women’s Javelin Throw final, Nadeeka Lakmaali will be competing today. She is in 4th position on performance for entries but is a medal prospect.
Chameera Lakshan Gunawardene was placed last in the last race of the day. He finished in 7th and last place in the Men’s Mistral Windsurfing
Having won 123 Golds China is leading the Medal Tally.South Korea 54, Japan 37,Iran 13 and Kazhakstan 10 are below them in that order.
14 World Records and 26 Asian Records have been established at the Games upto now.
Haritha Perera @ the Main Media Center in Incheon,South Korea.
