England-Asia Cup 2024 Indoor Cricket Tournament concluded successfully after 5 days of intense action at the U-Pro Indoor Stadium. 14 teams from Sri Lanka, India, England and Singapore competed in 3 categories at the tournament, with Sri Lanka winning both Men’s and Masters categories, while England won the Women’s category.
The tournament began on the 14th of April amidst the Sinhala and Tamil New Year celebrations in the country, and 34 matches took place during the 5 days across 3 categories. In the Men’s category, Sri Lanka, led by the highly experienced Kolitha Hapuarachchi, emerged victorious beating India in the Finals by a mammoth 85 runs. Sri Lanka won 8 out of the 9 games they played in the tournament, with the remaining game ending as a tie against India in the group stage. They won 26 skins out of 32 in the group stage. Nav Patel from England won the Player of the Tournament award in the Men’s category, while Dilisara Sasanka (Sri Lanka) and Vijay Gowda (India) won the Best Bowler and Best Batter award respectively. Sri Lanka’s Rumesh Perera won the Player of the Final award.
In the Women’s category, the England national side were miles ahead from the rest of the teams as they completely dominated the tournament from the beginning till the end, winning all their games quite comfortably. Even in the Final, it was a one sided encounter with them winning the match by 82 runs over Sri Lanka. England won 27 skins out of 32 in the whole tournament showcasing their pure dominance. D’Nica Roff was adjudged both Player of the Tournament and Player of the Final for her phenomenal first skin batting performances, while Anushka Perera from Sri Lanka won the Best Bowler award. Una Paramjothy won the Best Batter award for her powerful batting efforts.
- In the Masters category 4 teams competed and the two teams from Sri Lanka eventually qualified for the Finals easily. Although the teams from India and Singapore competed diligently, they were simply not good enough for the two Lankan teams. In the all Sri Lanka Final, the Masters got the better of the Legends by a handsome margin of 54 runs. In the group stage, the Masters only lost to the Legends and they managed to win 17 skins out of 24 in the first round. Gihan Gunathilake won the Player of the Tournament in this category for his amazing all-round outings, while Nuwan Dinesh won the Best Bowler award, India Masters Skipper Prasanna Kumar won the Best Batter award, while Jawidh Farook from Sri Lanka Masters won the Player of the Final award.
The whole tournament was a huge success, and the 5 days of amazing Indoor Cricket action for sure created a brand new fan base in Sri Lanka and all the other countries, thereby creating a huge boost for the growth of the game.
