|
The weekend promised some good
entertainment with the much awaited Lanka Lions vs. Ceylon
Sports Club game which was scheduled for play on the 27th
July at Turf City ‘A’. It’s a game that we have been waiting to
play for over a year with both games in 2007 (Lanka Lions
inaugural year) being granted to the Lions by walkover. The
Lions were playing to take the lead at the top of the Div 1
table for the first time in our first year in division 1. With
thunder storms being the forecast however, the weather did not
look promising going into the weekend. Nevertheless the weather
held up well enough and come Sunday morning it looked like the
game was on...
CSC winning the toss decided to put the Lanka Lions into bat and took the
field with just 9 players at the start of the game (their number
10 showed about an hour later). Renchun and Johanne opened the
batting for the Lions and put on a steady display of batting on
an overcast day where the ball was moving around quite a lot.
CSC skipper Saad was having trouble controlling the moving ball
even though he was generating quite a bit of pace, accuracy was
lacking. The other CSC opening bowling was bowling a far better
line keeping the Lanka Lions batting in check. With the score
in the 40’s the first Lions wicket was lost with Johanne falling
to Maneesh who was bowling at a nagging slow pace making the
batsmen work hard for runs. Skipper Chaminda joined Renchun
who lost his wicket a few balls later, putting the Lions in a
spot of bother. With the Lions at 44/2 Buddhika joined Chaminda
and the pair was batting with a lot of determination under
difficult conditions. Chaminda was next to go when he was clean
bowled for 30 by a ball that kept low. Sanjaya Gangodawila
joined Buddhika, but didn’t last long as he was caught trying to
lift one over the line. Lanka Lion and ex-Sri Lanka
International Russel Arnold then joined Buddhika who was holding
one end up with great determination. The Lions reached 150 for
the loss of 4 wickets in 33 overs, with both Russel and Buddhika
slowly starting to open up, accumulating runs at a steady pace.
There were plenty of singles to be had at Turf City due to the
slow outfield, but boundaries were few and far between. The
pair was gaining in strength as the next 50 runs came in just 7
overs and the Lions score reaching 200 / 4 in 39 overs, the
boundaries were starting to flow. Russel then accelerated the
scoring rate after reaching his 50, showing the crowd of
supporters and players alike his class batsmanship. This is
what I have been longing to see... the sixes were no half
measures as they started raining into the adjoining fields, it
looked like the relatively large Turf City field was not nearly
enough to contain such a class act. Buddhika Mendis egged on by
Russell’s big hitting, was not too far behind as he kept
rotating the strike and hitting the occasional one out of the
ground, and before you knew it the Lions score had reached a 300
/ 4, with the last 100 runs coming in just 7 overs. The scorer
Lakshmi was not given a chance to rest as the last 4 overs
resulted in 50 more runs as the Lions ended their merciless
tirade of runs with the score at 350 / 4 in 50 overs. The two
centurions, Russel Arnold 127 not out, and Buddhika Mendis 108
not out taking the Lions to their highest ever score surpassing
the 344 in 40 overs against ICC last year also at Turf City.
The boys went into lunch with a job well done for the first half
of the day.
Understandably CSC did not take the crease with too much hope of making
the daunting target of 351, but hoping to make the most of their
outing, stalwarts of CSC cricket of late, Mohan and Maneesh
opened the batting. The Lions opened the bowling with speed and
accuracy from Mizran and complementing swing bowling from
Snehath, who got a chance to open the bowling with Thushara
Kodikara still not fit enough to play. Snehath determined to
make the most of it found his old touch and swing as he bowled
brilliantly accounting for the first three CSC wickets. The
only real resistance came from skipper Saad who looked dangerous
for a while as he started moving the score toward 50 along with
stylish batsman Senthuran giving him good support. An inspired
change from skipper Chaminda who brought in veteran Johanne
Peiris (no doubt because Chaminda had a long trip back to Kuala
Lumpur for the ACC tournament to look forward to after the game,
and wanted to rely on the vast experience) to bowl worked like a
charm as he removed dangerous Saad caught at covers. The CSC
inning seemed to lose direction after the loss of Saad as
wickets started to tumble. Russel Arnold was called into polish
off the tail and obliged with some overs being turned around at
the speed of light as he bowled from a run up starting a step in
front of the umpire. CSC folded for 77 runs with Snehath ending
up with 3 wickets and Johanne and Supun 2 a piece accounting for
most of the wickets. All of them had a very good day with the
ball. A very good outing also for Zafarullah Hashim who went on
to hold 3 good catches for the match , with the first one being
an excellent catch diving forward.
All in all a very satisfying outing for the Lions!
With 6 more games to go the Lions are in a very healthy position
in the league with 82 points from 10 matches.
The winning Lanka Lions team:
Chaminda Ruwan (capt), Buddhika Mendis, Russel Arnold, Zheng
Renchun (wk), Mizran Feisal, Johanne Peiris, Supun Tharanga,
Sanjaya Gangodawila, Snehath Dias, Zafarullah Hashim, Chamira
Fernando. Manager: M. Jeevanathan. |
