England U19s recorded a thumping win over Sri Lanka U19s in the ongoing Tri-Nations U19s Tournament in West Indies on the 15th of December 2019.
The English boys won the toss and asked the Lankans to bat first. There was yet again a failure at the top of the order as the left-handed opener from Mahinda College, Navod Paranavithana, was dismissed at the start of the 3rd over with the scoreboard on 2 runs. Thomian Ravindu de Silva, who is having a tough run in the series so far, departed with just 2 runs to his name. This is his 3rd knock of below 5 runs in 4 games this tour. Kamil Misara’s woes in running between the wickets returned in this game too. He looked good at the crease for his 23 runs before running himself out.
The rest of the batting that followed did not flourish either for the Lankans as the next best score was just the 19 runs scored by Ashain Daniel coming late down the order. Daniel brought in some stability to the Lankan batting, which looked brittle from the beginning, but ran out of partners to support him.
The men in form in the Sri Lankan line-up, Nipun Dhananjaya, Ahan Wickramasinghe and Sonal Dinusha all departed with scores below 20, leaving the team in jeopardy.
English skipper George Balderson was the one to pave early inroads into the Lankan line-up. The young Lancashire all-rounder picked up 3 wickets for 18 runs while his new-ball partner Scott Currie came to the party a little late. The 18-year-old right-arm seamer picked up 3 wickets towards the tail end of the innings to end the game with identical figures as his captain.
Though it was the seamers who took the centre-stage for England, it was the other way around for Sri Lanka. The 2 fast bowlers who made it to the XI in the game bowled only 5 overs collectively. It Kavindu Nadeeshan, who is having a fantastic tour so far, who grabbed the limelight yet again in the bowling. The right-arm leggie bowled well for his 3 for 33 in a low-scorer. Left-arm spinner Dilum Sudeera also picked up 2 wickets for 26 runs to support his team. But, all their efforts were not good enough to stop this English outfit from racing to a target of 114 runs.
Top order bat, Dan Mousley set the pace for the chase with a composed knock worth 43 runs. Opener Ben Charlesworth added 24 runs to the cause and another 19 came from the fairly experienced Worcestershire batsman Jack Haynes, meaning that England was well ahead in the game. Though England lost a wicket or two more than what they should have, they got past the line in 33 overs. It was a decent effort from the Lankan bowlers but they weren’t supported enough with the bat.
Brief scores
SL U19 113/10 (42.3)
Kamil Mishara 23, Ashain Daniel 19*, Sonal Dinushan 18, Scott Currie 3/18, George Balderson 3/18
ENG U19 115/6 (33)
Dan Mousley 43, Ben Charlesworth 24, Jack Haynes 19, Kavindu Nadeeshan 3/33, Dilum Sudeera 2/26
England U19s won by 4 wickets
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