St. Peter’s, Ananda and Thurstan advance to semi-finals
Thurstan's Nimesh Lakshan is caught by Supun Sumanaratne at slips off Kaveen Bandara (unseen) - Pic by Ranjith Perera
St. Peter’s along with Ananda and Thurstan came out victorious in their quarter-final encounters against Mahinda, DSS and Maliyadeva respectively to advance to the semi-finals of the Under 17 Division One cricket tournament in the matches played at Thurstan ground, Lyceum IS ground in Wattala and St Peter’s ground in Bambalapitiya.
A knock of 56 by Santhush Gunatilleke laid the foundation for St Peter’s and later a four wicket haul by Dineth Anjula helped them record a 46 runs victory against Mahinda. St Peter’s taking first lease of the wicket made a modest score of 211 and then restricted their opponents to a score of 165.
Valuable knocks by Dushan Hettige and Shamal Hirushan paved the way for Ananda to record a comfortable 85 runs win over DSS. Dushan cracked an 88 while Shamal made a contribution of 48 enabling Ananda batting first to end their allotted 50 overs with a score of 242 for 9.
Later Asel Sigera along with Shamal and Sanath Dassanayaka shared seven wickets between them to bowl out DSS in their run chase for a score of 157 runs.
Two top performances by Yeshan Wickramaarachchi and Nipun Lakshan enabled Thurstan to record a convincing 128 runs win over Maliyadeva in another quarter-final match of the same tournament played at St Peter’s ground in Bambalapitiya.
Yeshan cracked an 85 helping Thurstan to make a formidable score of 258. Then Nipun Lakshan ran through the Maliyadeva batting as ended with impressive figures of 5 for 18 to skittle them out for 130.
