Moratuwa Sharks emerge Campus Cricket Champs

In a nail biting final, the University of Moratuwa edged out the Sri Jayewardenapura University by a mere 10 runs at P. Sara Oval, Colombo recently in their bid to represent Sri Lanka in the Red Bull College Cricket World Finals to be held at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.

Red Bull Campus Cricket 2013 Sri Lanka Finals got off to a cracking start with two formidable teams battling it out with each other for the pride of representing their country in the World Series. University of Moratuwa emerged victorious and crowned as Sri Lanka Red Bull Campus Cricket Champions.

In a day filled with twists and turns the Japura Kings won the toss and decided to field. The Moratuwa Sharks got off to a good start with N.S. Marasinghe top scoring with a quick fire 39 runs off 23 balls. He was ably supported by S.U. Perera who steadied the innings with 28 runs off 34 balls. S.M. Karunaratne was the pick of the bowlers for Japura Kings taking three wickets for just 22 runs. The Sharks finished their allotted 20 overs with 137 runs for the loss of nine wickets.

In reply Kings got off to a blistering start with a flurry of sixers and boundaries hammered by their opening pair. R.M. Cooray top scored for the Kings with a nifty 56 off 51 balls and his opening partner T.M. Samarasinghe scored 38 off 40 balls.

After losing the opening pair things slowed down with new batsmen struggling to keep up with the required run-rate. Sharks maintained a tight bowling attack and finished their quota of 20 overs keeping Kings 10 runs behind the target. The newly crowned National Champions of ‘Red Bull Campus Cricket 2013’ will face the champions from the best campus teams of other test playing nations, in the ‘Red Bull College Cricket World Series’ to be held in India next month. This would be the first Red Bull World Series featuring the sport of cricket.

The 2013 edition of Sri Lanka ‘Red Bull Campus Cricket’ tournament witnessed 14 local universities battle it out to be crowned National Champions. The Series caught the local social media scene by storm with the first ever sports blogging competition in Sri Lanka. Approximately 20 bloggers published close to 50 posts prior to the finals in an attempt to win a spot to witness the World Finals.