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by Chris Dhambarage

Nalanda College delivered a stunning blow as they brought down the unbeaten Royal team by six wickets in their Elephant Lemonade Cup inter-school cricket tournament match played at Campbell Place during the weekend.

This was an important win for the Nalandians as their previous victory over Royal was recorded five years ago. In addition to that they had not performed anything extraordinary until then and had also suffered a first innings defeat at the hand of Thurstan last week.

But this time they got their act together well on their home grounds and came out with a superlative performance to seal the game with plenty of overs and time to spare. Their success would have come even much earlier if not for a fighting knock of 83 by Royal's most experienced player Ganganath Ratnayake. The all-rounder held on determinedly and stretched the game at least into the final session while avoiding the humiliation of an innings defeat.

At one stage Royal were almost down and out after being bowled out for disappointing first innings total of 99. The Nalandians consolidated the position from there onwards and went onto add the finishing touches quite convincingly. The bowler who caused most of the damage was Malinga Ratnayake as he finished with a matchbag of twelve wickets.

The Nalandians certainly felt the absence of key batsman Gamini Chandrakumara who is presently on national duty with the Sri Lanka under 19 team in New Zealand. However they rattled up a formidable score of 248 for 6 with the help of two half centuries from Lasitha Amarasuriya and Ishara Dilshan.

Stalemate at Mount Lavinia

Meanwhile the important game between S. Benedict's College and S. Thomas' College Mount Lavinia turned out to be a stalemate with the match ending in a no decision. The Thomians made certain that they would not lose on the first innings by occupying the crease during the entire first day and even batting for a short period on day two.

The Bens too responded in the same way and batted throughout the final day scoring 217 for 7 in reply to their opponents total of 239 for 9. Imran Mohamed played the anchor role and completed a memorable century - his first in the current inter school season. This was a fantastic effort from the youngster who batted with a great amount of determination with the back up support coming from Angelo Anandappa and L. Jayampathy.

Splendid display by Cambrians

Prince of Wales College put up another splendid performance as they took first innings points from the more fancied St. Peter's team in their encounter played at Moratuwa. The Cambrians added further humiliation to the Peterites by reducing them to 156 for 8 in the second innings. This was another match which the home team completely dominated with the consistent run getter Amila Sandaruwan failing to reach the three figure mark by just eight runs.

Together with his partner Ramanayake they figured in a century opening stand as they made the Peterite attack look just an ordinary one. They went onto make 240 and had a good chance of forcing an outright win after the visitors had collapsed to 167 in the first innings. The Peterites seem to be losing their touch and reputation somewhat having being outplayed in successive outings after making a very good start to the season.

Sebastianite dominance ends

Ananda College brought an end to St. Sebastian's dominance winning their fixture on the first innings at Moratuwa. The Anandians did well to defend their total of 239 and bowled out the opposition for under two hundred runs. This was a fine effort by the Anandians as the Sebastianites have been quite successful in chasing even much bigger totals with their formidable batting line up.

This time however the Sebastianites were up against a more penetrative bowling attack with Yohan Wickremage and Lahiru Senaratne leading the way. The pair shared six wickets between them as the home team collapsed to 196 in their first innings.

Impressive display by Joes

St. Joseph's College put up an impressive performance to beat Wesley College on the first innings in their fixture played at Darley Road. The Joes bowled out their opponents for a modest 152 and then compiled 183 runs to win the game by a convincing margin. Hashan Gunatilleke hit a top score of 68 for the Joes with useful contributions coming from Thivanka de S. Wijeratne and Gihan Perera.

Maristonians triumph

Maris Stella College put up a fine all round performance to beat Thurstan College by seven wickets in their encounter played in Negombo. Maris Stella's matchwinner was Hadley Jayawardena who produced a penetrative spell of bowling in both innings. He claimed 5 for 48 as the Thurstanites were dismissed for the second time in the match for 169 runs.

Hadley Jayawardena certainly proved his all round capabilities and also made his presence felt with the bat scoring 81 in their first innings total of 259. Maris Stella were left with an easy victory target at the end and they made it in style with the experienced Ishan Muthalib leading the way.

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