With a few weeks into Premier League super 8 four-day cricket tournament between top eight clubs of the country unbeaten NCC lead the points table with one win in the bag. NCC aggregate 57.505 points beating their closest revival Moors (52.220) who were unbeaten at the group stage.
Even though NCC won only one match they have won three matches in first innings while losing one match in first innings. SSC, Army and Tamil Union too has maintained unbeaten runs yet first innings losses didn’t give them much points to stay on top. Port Authority who lost their captain Ashan Priyanjan during most of the season due to national duty looked week and lost four of its matches out of five with only one win in bag.
Jehan Mubarak who is playing with form of his life has largely contributed for NCC wins where he scored an unbeaten 173 runs in last week against Port Authority and took NCC for a win almost single-handedly from a losing position. Left hander Mubarak has scored 1037 runs in eight matches and average 103.70 per inning. He has scored six centuries and one half century including his first double century and two 150+ scores. Mubarak also maintained a healthy strike rate of 65.01 with 123 fours and 12 sixes raising eye brows of selectors. Ex Army captain Manjula De Soyza is in second place in the highest scorer’s table with 770 runs in 14 innings.
Malinda Pushpakumara, left arm spinner from Moors topped the wicket takers chart with 44 wickets in 8 matches so far with five five-wicket hauls and two ten wickets hauls. Pushpakumara has been the leading wicket taker of this tournament for past three years now.
Moors who were leading the table until last week faced a heavy defeat from Army due to exceptional bowling from Ravindra Palleguruge who captured eight wickets in the innings.
There are two more weeks to be played in the tournament where both Moors and NCC will play against Ragama and SSC. NCC, SSC and Moors are the three teams who have already collected more than 50 points and will be eyeing to finish top after the tournament.
