Bats dominates over ball despite adverse weather

The third week of the Under 23 Youth tournament 2000/01 saw the bat dominating the ball even under overcast conditions with some of the matches being affected by rain.

There were four centuries this weekend with the highest individual score of 150 in the tournament so far, made by Suboda Jayawardena of Kurunegala Youth CC which enabled his team complete a win against Navy SC.

Sri Lanka under 19 cricketer Ian Daniel stroked a superb 117 for SSC against a strong Sebastianites bowling attack. But the match ended in a no-decision due to rain.

The other two centuries came from Negombo CC batsmen Mevan Fernando and Anuruddha Ratnasiri who made identical scores of 108 against Police SC. Fernando was undefeated in his knock. The match too ended in a no-decision.

Damitha Hunukumbura of CCC missed out on a century by six runs when he was stumped off a delivery from Sri Lanka Test spinner Rangana Herath. But CCC had the satisfaction of defeating Moors SC on first innings.

With Hunukumbura there were seven other half centurions namely, Chinthaka Jayasinghe (57) for BRC, S Gunasekera (51) for KYCC, Upeka Fernando (60) for SSC, Prasanna Jayawardene (56) for Sebastianites, A Perera (60) for Panadura SC and, Chamara Soysa (50) for Bloomfield.

In the bowling department Rangana Herath of Moors took eight wickets for 71 against CCC, while Sajeewa Weerakoon of BRC had a match bag of 13 wickets against Chilaw Marians SC. He took seven wickets for 68 in the first innings and 6 for 64 in the second.

Pubudu Sathyapala (6/38) of Chilaw Marians, I Dharmawardena (6/44) of KYCC, Charinda Fernando (5/43) of Tamil Union were the other bowlers to take more than five wickets.

The match between Singha SC and Sri Lanka Air Force SC was abandoned due to rain and soggy outfield at Galle International stadium.

Sebastianites, CCC, NCC and Panadura have shown improving performances and have already booked berths in the quarterfinal with a clear margin against their opponents in the respective groups with two weeks of preliminary round matches to go.