Tillakratne century secures NCC the top spot in Super Eight

Poor weather in Colombo severely disrupted the Super Eight and the Plate Competition over the weekend, but Nondescripts Cricket Club still had time to clinch an important first innings victory against Burgher Recreation Club, which lifts them to the top of the table and makes them favourites to win the championship next week.

With just one week remaining in the Super Eight and BRC and NCC are the only clubs who can now win Sri Lanka's first-class competition. BRC probably have the easier of the two fixtures. They take on Tamil Union, as NCC play a powerful Colombo Cricket Club side.

Nondescripts CC are still in with an excellent chance of winning this tournament because of a marathon innings by Hashan Tillakaratne, which saved them from a perilous position of 14 for five on the first morning. He scored an unbeaten 185 and guided NCC to 372 for eight. In reply, BRC were bundled out for 132 and were 89 for seven in their second innings, when the match came to a close.

Aravinda de Silva, who will be meeting with the ICC Anti-Corruption Unit this week, played his part too. He scored 55 in the first innings, adding 83 runs for the sixth wicket with Tillakaratne, before creating chaos with his rolling off breaks. He finished with five wickets for 53 runs in the first innings.

With a new selection committee to be appointed in early May, Tillakaratne's century could not have been more timely. He has scored three centuries this season at an average in excess of 100 and has scored 610 runs in total. With the Sri Lankan middle order wobbly to say the list at the moment, he would appear to have a good chance of a recall.

Elsewhere, the most exciting clash was between Panadura and Bloomfield Sports and Athletic club. Bloomfield secured a first innings victory after bowling out Panadura for 186, 26 runs short of Bloomfield's total. Panadura then came agonisingly close to losing the match. Required to chase 216 for victory they collapsed to 120 for nine before the end of play.

Colts Cricket Club managed to secure a first innings victory against Sinhalese Sports Club thanks to the efforts of KGM Perera, a top order batsmen playing in place of Sajith Fernando, who is playing club cricket in England. Perera scored an unbeaten 62 off 185 balls and added 38 runs for the ninth wicket with Dinuk Hettiarachchi after Colts had slumped to 158 for eight, still 12 runs short of SSC's 170.

The Tamil Union-Colombo Cricket Club encounter yielded no result after the match was abandoned because of the wet weather. Michael Vandort and Lanka de Silva both scored centuries in the CCC first innings.