Wesley College put up a fine all round performance to take first innings honours over their traditional rivals Kingswood College Kandy in their annual inter school Under 19 cricket encounter which concluded at Campbell Park today.
In fact the Wesleyites could have even forced an outright victory if they had few more overs left at the end considering the fact that Kingswood College were struggling at 131 for 7 in their second innings with an overall lead of just 80 runs.
Even then Wesley College will be more than pleased with this effort as this performance will certainly lift their morale and will give them a great amount of confidence going into the latter stages of the current season.
Their bowling attack in particular showed a tremendous improvement as they came closer towards bowling out their opponents for a low total for the second time in the match.
In the first innings it was their newcomer Dilshan Farahith who stole the limelight while returning excellent figures of four wickets for 34 runs and supported well by the more experienced Sachin Jayawardena.
In fact spinner Sachin Jayawardena took the honours in the second innings as he produced a magnificent spell of bowling to have outstanding figures of five wickets for 63 runs that left Kingswood College in kinds of trouble.
The Kingswoodians eventually held on determinedly to force a draw with their top order batsman Mihidum Wijesinghe once again playing a dominant role in the match.
In the first innings he played a responsible knock but missed out a half century by just a solitary run and then played even a more important innings in the second innings to salvage some of their pride.
Wesley College of course went on to build up a good first innings lead of 51 runs thanks to three splendid knocks from Chamod Athulathmudali (56), Pasindu Seneviratne (49) and all rounder Jonathan Cadiramanpulle (43)
The two spinners Daminda Weerakoon and Tharindu Liyanage took the bowling honours for Kingswood College while sharing seven wickets between them.
Kingswood College: 168 (Mihidum Wijesinghe 49, Pashan Jayawickrema 30, Dilshan Farahith 4 for 34, Sachin Jayawardena 3 for 28) and 131 for 7 (Mihidum Wijesinghe 36, Sachin Jayawardena 5 for 63)
Wesley: 219 for 8 declared (Chamod Athulathmudali 56, Pasindu Seneviratne 49, Jonathan Cadiramanpulle 43, Daminda Weerakoon 4 for 41, Tharindu Liyanage 3 for 58)
