Sri Lanka made an impressive start on the opening day of the ITF Asia Under-14 Development Championship finals as five local players recorded victories at the Sri Lanka Tennis Association courts on Monday.

The tournament, which will run until April 19, features young tennis talent from fourteen Asian nations competing for honours. Teams from Hong Kong, India, South Korea, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Nepal, Myanmar, Syria, Chinese Taipei, Uzbekistan, Thailand and hosts Sri Lanka are taking part in the championship.

Sri Lanka’s girls produced a strong showing in the first round with three convincing victories. Navya Banagala delivered a dominant performance to defeat Leisan Laksova of Kazakhstan 6-1, 6-0. Sahansa Damsiluni also impressed as she overcame M. Akramov of Uzbekistan 6-4, 6-2. Dinethma Ekanayake completed the successful outing for the girls with a comfortable 6-0, 6-2 win against Vin Miyo Aye of Myanmar.

In the boys’ competition, Buvindu Jayawardhne fought back strongly after losing the first set to beat Nepal’s Bishwo Dallakot 4-6, 6-2, 6-2. Chirath Subasinghe added another victory for the hosts with a convincing 6-4, 6-0 win over Aung Zay of Myanmar.

With five players progressing after the opening round, Sri Lanka enjoyed a promising start to the championship as the young national hopefuls look to make their mark against some of Asia’s emerging tennis talent.

Arrangements have been made to conduct the 71st National Billiards Championship 2026 sponsored by Automobile Association of Ceylon (AAC) and conducted by the Billiards & Snooker Association of Sri Lanka.

‎It is the fourth consecutive year that the sponsors have come forward to bear the cost of the championship.

‎The organisers envisage that there will be around 100 players taking part from around the country. The Championship will constitute of three segments, namely, district, the all Island and finally the national segment.

The 16 seeded players who played the Nationals last year will play for laurels this year too. In addition, the All Island level matches will comprise the players relegated from the last year Nationals and players who will be selected from the districts at this year’s tournament.

‎The matches will be played at the billiards parlor of the Association and the final matches will take place at the Automobile Association of Ceylon tables.

‎Affiliated clubs from the entire country are entitled ti enter for this year’s tournament. Most of the entries are expected from the tri forces players.

‎The proud record that billiards have established in the country dates back to 1973 where M J M Lafir annexed the World ‘s Billiards Championship played in India.

Defending champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru [RCB] razed Chennai Super Kings’ [CSK]  attack and the record books, in front of their beloved fans at the Chinnaswamy Stadium.

After being on 91 for 1 in ten overs, RCB nearly tripled that in the last ten, pushing the limits of T20 power-hitting. RCB’s 250 for 3 was their third highest total in the IPL and the highest ever by any team against CSK in the league. In response, CSK lost their top three inside three overs and eventually slid to their third successive defeat in IPL 2026.

The Chinnaswamy surface was tacky in the early exchanges, according to Devdutt Padikkal who scored 50 off 29 balls, and the outfield was unusually slow, with quite a few strong hits plugging in the outfield. While the surface settled later in the innings, the outfield remained slow. Tim David and Rajat Patidar didn’t feel the need to hit the ball into the outfield, especially when they had the power to keep launching the ball into the night sky.

David and Patidar faced 44 balls between them and sent 14 of those disappearing over the boundary. The entire CSK batting line-up could manage only 11 sixes.

After being asked to bat, RCB needed 20 balls for the first boundary of the day. Both Matt Henry and Khaleel Ahmed hit hard lengths and made scoring hard for Phil Salt and Virat Kohli. It was Anshul Kamboj who provided CSK with the opening breakthrough when he had Kohli caught by Shivam Dube at long-on for 28 off 18 balls. Dube redeemed himself after dropping Kohli on 7 at mid-on off Khaleel Ahmed in the third over.

With the ball not coming onto the bat, Salt laboured to 15 off 16 balls. A brace of swatted fours off Kamboj then freed him up, but Shivam Dube, bowling for the first time in this season, struck with his third ball to stop Salt on 46 off 30 balls with a cutter that was banged into the pitch.

Padikkal, who had dashed out the blocks on the opening day of the season, wasn’t allowed to do so on this track. He started slowly as well – he was on 17 off 16 balls at one point – but then put then put the pedal to the floor and converted it into a 28-ball half-century. It was his second successive fifty, but it certainly wasn’t the story of the day.

David and Patidar came together at 151 for 3 at the start of the 15th over after Overton had knocked Padikkal over by cranking it up to 148kph. The carnage created by David and Patidar turned out to be the story of the day.

With only 35 balls left in the innings, David took strike for 25 of those and crashed an unbeaten 70. Only one other batter has scored as many or more without facing a ball in the first 14 overs of a T20 innings (where ball-by-ball data is available).

David was particularly brutal on Overton, taking him for a sequence 6,4,6,6,6 in the 19th over that yielded 30 runs. All of those hits had the Chinnaswamy in a frenzy. One of those even had Kohli off his seat in the dressing room and applauding David. The last of that sequence was a 106-metre monster six that disappeared out of the ground.

At the other end, Patidar had the best seat to this six-hitting show. He didn’t face a single ball for almost three overs between overs 17 and 20. In all, he faced just five balls since the 16th over. Prior to that, he had played some special shots of his own. Like the pumped six off Noor Ahmad in the 12th over. Like the sliced six over the same region off a near yorker from Khaleel four overs later. Patidar finished with an unbeaten 48 off 19 balls.

After seeing David thump one six after another, Bhuvneshwar Kumar “wasn’t sure whether I should be happy or sad”. He had 200 reasons to be happy when he had Ayush Mhatre flapping a catch to mid-off for 1 by hitting an awkward, in-between length. It was his 200th wicket in the IPL; only Yuzvendra Chahal has more wickets than him in the league.

By the end of the powerplay, CSK were 77 for 3, with Sarfaraz Khan scoring 50 of those in 24 balls. Next ball, however, Krunal Pandya had Sarfaraz stumped. Prashant Veer then showed some spark during his 43 off 29 balls after going two matches without bowling a single ball. His shovelled four between deep midwicket and wide long-off off a Krunal dart showed why franchises were locked in a bidding war for Veer at the auction.

Overton also made some quick runs, but his cameo could not offset the damage caused by the sixes he had conceded to David.

Brief scores:
Royal Challengers Bengaluru 250 for 3 in 20 overs  (Phil Salt 46, Virat Kohli 28,  Devdutt Paddikal 50, Rajat Patidar 48*, Tim David 70*; Anshul Kamboj 1-52, Jamie Overton 1-42, Shivam  Dube 1-30) beat Chennai Super Kings 207 in 19.4 overs  (Sarfaraz Khan 50, Shivam Dube 18,Prashant Veer 43, Jamie Overton 37, Anshul Kamboj 19*; Jacob Duffy 2-58, Bhuvneshwar Kumar  3-41, Abhinandan Singh 2-30, Kunal Pandya 2-36, Suyash Sharma 1-21) by 43 runs

[Cricinfo]