Naveed Nawaz guides NCC to convincing victory

An unbeaten knock of 52 runs by Naveed Nawaz helped Nondescripts Cricket Club beat Galle Cricket Club convincingly by seven wickets in their BCCSL Premier Limited Overs match at the NCC grounds today.

Nawaz, who arrived at the crease after the dismissal of Aravinda de Silva (30), scored his half century from 87 balls and hit two fours and a huge six.

NCC were asked to chase only only 159 runs in 50 overs. They got off to a flying startwith Aravinda de Silva smashing the bowlers around the ground in his quick-fire 30 runs which came from just 24 balls. He hit one six and four boundaries.

Kumar Sangakkara found some form after his relatively disappointing performance in Sharjah and went on to score a solid 40 runs with five boundaries. They reached the winning runs in 35.3 overs with seven wickets in hand.

Asked to bat first, Galle CC, who had a good start to the season beating Sebastanites SC convincingly by seven wickets, got off to a slow start but nevertheless added 77 runs for the first wicket from 26 overs. Dhammika Sudarshana scored 38 runs and Chanaka Withanage made 39.

However, after the openers were dismissed the middle order struggled to raise the tempo and wickets were lost at regular intervals. Only Saman Fonseka stayed at the wicket for a significant period of time. He scored 25 runs.

NCC skippe,r Hashan Tillakeratne, who is better known for his expoilts as a wicket keeper and batsman, showed his all round talent as he captured four wickets for 18 runs in a nine over spell. Susantha Pradeep (3/28) chipped in with three wickets.

A disappointed Galle skipper, Duminda Wickramasinghe, played the toss for his sides plight: "We would have preferred to have fielded first. It was difficult to bat in the morning because of the moist conditions," Wickramasinghe explained.