Gihan Herath leads Old Trinitians to victory

Kandy sports special correspondent

Old Trinitians scored a sensational win over their arch rival, Old Anthonians in their annual cricket encounter played at the Wilf Slack Memorial Cricket Club in Finchley, in a keenly contested event held in May this year in the bank holiday weekend.

Old Trinitians was led by Gihan Herath, a former all-rounder who represented the cricket team of the Trinity College, Kandy. Having won the toss the Old Trinitians decided to field taking advantage of the perfect pitch for bowlers. Old Anthonians lost both of openers early, which brought in ever threatening Azan Burah to the wicket.

He was then joined by Ruzli Mohamed and was orthodox involved in as partnership of 78 runs. Burah's glittering innings ended at 30. Mohamed scored 26. Old Anthonians losing their wickets regularly did not pile up enough runs on the board, although Dusantha Gunawardene scored 18 runs, followed by Pradesh Surendra with 18 and Menan Ponnambalam with 24. Their contributions helped the Old Anthonians to a total of 183 runs in 33 out of 35 overs.

For the Trinity Lions, Zain Haniffa, Shiraj Majeed and Nazoomi Azar were the pick of the bowlers. Zain Hanifa was the most outstanding among them bagging 4 wickets for 30 runs and Nazoomi Azar claimed 3 wickets for 34 runs.

In reply, Old Trinitians got off to a tremendous start with skipper Gihan Herath in his usual form scoring 58 runs with stroke rich play all round the wicket.

Being a seasoned player Gihan Herath was able to guide the rest of the team in the fist half of the game, with Kumar Samaratunga supporting with a well deserved 43 runs. At one stage the score was 110 runs with no loss, when Gihan Herath decided to retire to enable others to join in the batting spree. Among the rest of the team, Nuwan Jayasena scored the highest of 20 runs not out, and finally Old Trinitians won the match with 4 wickets in hand in 28 overs.

Gihan Herath due to his all round performance was awarded the Man of the Match, which Trinity won for the fourth consecutive year. This win also carried the coveted Merril Jayawardene Memorial Trophy, which is well deserved by the Trinitians for their excellent cricket performance in this year's annual cricket match.