Crowds invade as Jaffna Big Match comes to a halt
View(s):The 108th Battle of the North clash between traditional rivals St. John’s Jaffna and Jaffna Central played at the Jaffna Central ground in Jaffna was abandoned due to the supporters of both sides invading the playing field.
The incident occurred due to a decision given by one of the umpires was supposed to be unfair. Some of the crowd was on the verge of assaulting the umpires which forced the officials to take a stern decision of putting a halt any proceedings of the match. The match was evenly poised when play began on the final day with the Johnians having conceded a first inning lead to the Centralites coming back with vengeance to be in a position of turning the game in their favour.
Jaffna Central put in a pathetic batting performance in the second innings as they were made to struggle for their runs by left arm spinner Raviendran Lohathieswar who had a six wicket haul in the first inning.
Lohathieswar continued to torment the Centralite batsmen as he grabbed five more wickets in the final session of play on day two to have their opponents struggling on 94 for 9.
The Centralites resuming their innings on the final day was unable to add any runs and perished to the same score of 94 with Lohathieswar taking the last wicket to finish with another six wicket haul and end with a match bag of 12 wickets.
However Lohathieswar’s effort was in vain as the match was called off with Johnians chasing a victory target of 135 runs was on 27 for 2 having faced 7.4 overs. -MSA
| Scoreboard
Jaffna Central 1st innings 162 all out (P. Nirojan 40, K. Juniuskanthan 36, K. Sansajan 26, F. Jeyanthiran 19: R. Lohathieswar 6 for 53) |