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Sports

Provincial tourney a big success
After many years the provincial tournament was revived and overall it could be termed as a successful venture completed. There have been district and provincial tournaments conducted in the past but none as professionally organized as this one.

The main requirement is finances. Sri Lanka cricket has plenty of that these days. In fact a main reason the provincial tournament was scraped was due to lack of a sponsor.

Playing a four-day domestic tournament is a must for players to develop their skills and mentally adjust to play five day test cricket. Each one of the five teams had four such games and the top two met once more in the finals.

The time of the year produced very good weather and that resulted in playing on good pitches and fast outfields. This may not always be possible in the future, should international commitments get in the way. Also the cream of players were available to play. The presence of a manager, coach, physio and trainer for each team made every side a complete outfit. Players were not left alone to carry on as they wished. Almost all those selected fitted their roles. Being the first instance it certainly provided the platform to attract the best in the future.

With the best in action the standard of cricket was of the highest in domestic cricket. It is never easy to pick eleven players from different backgrounds and ask them to gel as a team. There is no motive to be totally activated. Winning a trophy and earning prize money is an incentive, yet not a complete driving force.

The fact the tournament was played to a finish over six weeks helped. It meant playing and training together during that period. The fact that there were four officials to overlook helped even more. What helped foster teamwork even more was that the players and officials were housed at a hotel for all the games. Even when the games were played in Colombo they stayed and travelled together. A very sound arrangement. They no doubt conducted regular team meetings and set out game plans. This was evident.

The one disappointment was the low scores in this final. The fourth innings had commenced before day two had ended. First impressions of the pitch indicated that it would not last the distance. Most of the grass had been taken off. This meant reducing the binding qualities and negating assistance for the pacemen.

Of course it did happen it was the quicker bowlers who took the majority of wickets in the first, second and third innings of the game. That was partly due to poor stroke play and partly because the batsmen were attempting to score runs before the spinners began their torment.

The most encouraging factor was the number of occasions when teams totalled over four hundred runs in an innings. Batsmen need to post big scores to develop their game. They can only bat for long periods if time and overs permit and here they had plenty of that.

In fact it was a tremendous effort by NCP to post over five hundred runs batting fourth to win a game - a world record, in first class cricket. Now that the ice has been broken, the shortcomings should be ironed out and an even better tournament be organized for the next season. Well done, to the organizing committee.

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