Sports

Roar by ‘Kandy Lions’ deafens Sri Lions

Published

1 year ago

2024/12/18

Sahan Weerasooriya

Kandy SC went on the rampage on Sunday to down Sri Lions SC 61-14 at Nittawela.

By A Special Sports Correspondent

Kandy Sport Club started the season with a bang by beating Sri Lions SC, a new entrant to division 1 rugby, in a keenly contested encounter of the 2024/24 inter-club league tournament played on Sunday at Nittawela. The result was a thumping 61-14 win for Kandy SC which ran down eight glorious tries, out of which six were converted by that ever reliable place kicker and attacking back division player Tharinda Ratwatte.

This win was a morale booster for Kandy; give that the side is in a team building process. Also the Nittawela side underscored that there cannot be two ‘lion kings’ in one rugby jungle. In a more raw term ‘Kandy SC put the ‘decorated’ visiting team in their place’.

Sri Lions SC came for the game with medals pinned on their profile; the latest feat being the victory gained in the ‘Mens’ International Open’ of the Dubai Rugby Sevens which they won quite convincingly. Sri Lions SC, for that overseas tournament, was reinforced with the skills of foreign players. This side also has in their ranks some of the most promising Sri Lankan players who learned the rudiments of rugby here in the island; especially at their schools. Sri Lions SC, while playing in Dubai, had the opportunity to borrow muscle power from players who came from Australia, South Africa, Tonga, Fiji and USA. But that facility of propping the side with foreigners was not afforded to them when contesting the domestic league tournament here because tournament rules restricts all teams to fielding only locals. May be if the tournament allowed teams to field foreigners, then the outcome of the game played in Nittawela would have been quite different. But then such hypothetical thought would only land us all in a rugby fantasy. The reality is that Sri Lanka has to face the outside world in terms of playing in the Asian circuit with players who are eligible to represent Sri Lanka. Hence the rugby authorities here not allowing foreigners to represent domestic clubs in the league tournament and work their way towards earning national representation at rugby. Sri Lanka’s rugby selectors select the national pool taking into account the performances of the players in the Inter-club league tournament. Players born overseas can also represent clubs and make themselves eligible for national team selection if they could prove that at least one of their immediate ancestors (father/mother/grandparents) was born in Sri Lanka.

But Sri Lions SC cannot be taken lightly. They have the backing of sponsors and foreign exposure. The side is backed by a think-tank, Dr. Kelum Sujith Perera, the brainchild behind this team and the founder president of Sri Lions SC. Their next game is against Ceylonese Rugby & Football Club (CR) scheduled for next Sunday in Colombo under floodlights. Sri Lions SC is led by former Peterite and ‘stepper’ Kevin Dixon.

Kandy SC would not let any side just walk in and take their place. The side from Nittawela are smarting from last season’s defeats at the hands of CR (Kandy SC were beaten twice in the league). Kandy under the leadership of utility player Srinath Sooriyabandara resembled a bullet train; speed and power written in all their moves in the season’s opener against Sri Lions SC. Their forwards were like hungry wolves and displayed the power to ‘bite’ and wound the opposition. A set of forwards which has the weight, speed and some of them having the intelligence to know what mauls and rucks to contest is dangerous and a treat to watch. That seems to be the stuff Kandy SC is made of this season. Mention must be made here about fly half Ratwatte who contributed 19 points through his kicking boots and chipped in with a try as well. He could easily stake a claim as being the best player Sri Lanka possesses at the moment.

Havies, like Kandy SC, had a wonderful outing in the first week of domestic rugby demolishing Navy SC by 43 points to 25 at Welisara. The Park Club players, donning the pink and chocolate jerseys, came to dominate the second half and ran down six tries out of which five were converted. Navy responded with three tries, but the best of the Sailors was seen in the first half. Navy even enjoyed taking the lead for a brief period in the first session, but Havies quickly took grip of the game.

The other side to impress in week one of the tournament was Air Force Sports Club which demolished Colombo Hockey & Football Club (CH&FC) at Ratmalana. The ‘airmen’ grounded CH with a score of 36 points against 15 and ran down five tries. CH responded with two tries. Air Force finished last season as ‘Plate’ championship winners in the league tournament. This side has showed much improvement over the years. Air Force is a side that can go places this season and even upset some of the much fancied sides this season. The other two teams in the tournament are Police SC and Army SC. Their match last week was called off when poor weather conditions forced the game to be halted after an exciting first half. Army was leading 8-5 at the ‘breather’.

The tournament is conducted by Sri Lanka Rugby and sponsored by Mastercard.

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Sooryavanshi blitz, Jurel 81* help Rajasthan Royals take down Royal Challengers Bengaluru with ease

Published

18 hours ago

2026/04/11

Priyan

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi struck at 300.00 [Cricinfo]

Vaibhav Sooriyavanshi equalled his own record for the fastest half-century, off 15 balls, in a six-fest on a flat Guwahati deck as Rajasthan Royals walloped Royal Challengers Bengaluru for their fourth straight win.

RCB hit seven sixes through their 20 overs in an innings where they went all out, seemingly mindful of the challenge Sooryavanshi would pose. And pose he did, hitting seven sixes off his own blade, in a scarcely believable exhibition of brutal hitting.

Reputation counted for little. If it was Jasprit Bumrah the other night, it was Josh Hazlewood’s turn to come under Sooryavanshi’s wheel on Friday. By the time he was dismissed for a 26-ball 78, toe-ending a flat-batted hit to long-on off Krunal Pandya, RR’s asking rate in a 202 chase was just over six with 11.5 overs remaining.

Sooryavanshi’s uninhibited hitting was matched by Dhruv Jurel’s scintillating stroke play, the pair effectively snuffed out RCB’s hopes in the powerplay itself as they plundered 97 – the highest of the season. Although RR lost a couple of wickets in a rush thereafter, the result was never really in doubt.

RCB’s defence was given an early lift when the returning Hazlewood struck in the second over to remove Yashasvi Jaiswal. After conceding a couple of sixes off the short ball, Hazlewood responded smartly by going cross-seam and into the pitch to induce the edge. But the delight at having struck early dissipated quickly as Sooryavanshi seized control by rattling off three boundaries and a six in succession in his next over.

Each of the four boundaries pierced a different arc. The short ball was carved behind point, the hard length into the pitch was muscled over mid-on, the fuller one driven crisply between cover and mid-off, and when tested with the bumper, Sooryavanshi fetched it from outside off and nailed the pull over deep square for six.

And remarkably, it wasn’t just Hazlewood under the pump. Bhuvneshwar Kumar – who had nearly dismissed him first ball with a late-curving inswinging yorker, only for the teenager to dig it out and shovel it straight back for four – was also taken apart. In the fifth over, Sooryavanshi swatted him for back-to-back sixes to bring up his half-century.

Keeping pace with Sooryavanshi stroke for stroke can’t be easy, but Jurel managed it seamlessly, without ever looking like he was trying to. He capped off the powerplay by hitting rookie Abhinandan Singh for a sequence of 4, 6, 4, 0, 6, 4 to end an extraordinary passage.

Jurel’s fast hands were the defining feature of that over – whether it was picking length early to pull or using his wrists to whip the ball into the top tier over deep square. He would later take charge of the innings, tightening his approach after a flurry of wickets, and finishing unbeaten on 76 off 36 balls.

Jurel’s 68-run fifth-wicket stand with Ravindra Jadeja then guided RR home comfortably, steadying things after Krunal briefly stirred RCB’s hopes with back-to-back strikes of Sooryavanshi and Shimron Hetmyer in the ninth over.

RR went through a quiet passage of four overs without a boundary, but the early onslaught from Sooryavanshi and Jurel meant they could afford to play out a few quiet overs fully knowing RCB were a spinner short, as they activated Venkatesh Iyer as an impact player for batting firepower in place of Suyash Sharma.

The match had a blockbuster opening act, with Jofra Archer’s vicious, rip-roaring bouncer sending back Phil Salt for a golden duck. But Virat Kohli fought fire with fire, hitting him for three boundaries in his next over, before Archer struck back to remove the in-form Devdutt Padikkal.

This didn’t affect Kohli, though, as he shredded a much-talked-about matchup with Sandeep Sharma (who had dismissed him seven times in 18 innings) by thumping him over the infield for two fours. But trouble soon came RCB’s way as Ravi Bishnoi struck two quick blows to leave them 73 for 4.

In his first two outings, Rajat Patidar went crash-bang-wallop from the get-go. But a top-order wobble forced him to dig deep. He played himself in, getting to 20 off 22 balls at one stage. And then, three overs later, he brought up a half-century off 35 balls. One of the reasons for this surge was his surety in stroke-making.

The two sixes he hit off Nandre Burger in the 15th had that stamp of authority. A gentle extension of his arms to loft one cleanly over long-off laid down the marker, but the hop back to whip a short ball aimed at his ribs over deep square leg was the blockbuster.

With none of Romario Shepherd or Tim David coming off with the bat, RCB brought in Venkatesh Iyer as their Impact Player, leaving Suyash on the bench. And Venkatesh gave an excellent account of himself on RCB debut, finishing the innings off with a cameo 29 that pushed them past 200.

As it turned out, it was nowhere near enough.

Brief scores:
Rajasthan Royals 202 for 4 (Yashasvi Jiswal 13, Dhruv Jurel 81*, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi 78, Ravindra Jadeja 24*; Josh Hazelwood 2-44, Krunal Pandya 2-30) beat Royal Challengers Bengaluru 201 for 8 in 20 overs (Virat Kohli32, Devudutt Padikkal 14, Rajat Patidar 63, Tim David 13, Romario Shepherd 22, Venkatesh Iyer 29*; Jofra Archer 2-33, Sandeep Sharma 1-47, Ravi Bishnoi 2-32, Ravindra Jadeja 1-14, Brijesh Sharma 2-37) by six wickets

[Cricinfo]

Sports

Brazil bowler Laura Cardoso takes 9 Lesotho wickets in record-breaking T20 win

Published

1 day ago

2026/04/10

Priyan

Laura Cardoso has taken the best bowling record in a T20 Women's International following her nine-wicket haul against Lesotho [Aljazeera]

Brazil are the unlikely candidates to have claimed two cricket records as one of their bowlers took a record nine wickets – including five in a row – in their 189-run T20 Women’s International victory against Lesotho in Botswana.

Having won the toss on Thursday, at the BCA Kalahari Women’s T20 International Tournament, Brazil posted a daunting 202-8 with wicketkeeper Monnike Machado hitting 69 off 41.

The fun, for the Brazilians, was only just beginning, though, as Laura Cardoso claimed a hat-trick with the last three deliveries of her first over – the second of the Lesotho innings – to set in motion the incredible feat that eventually saw the Africans bowled out for 13.

The 21-year-old then continued her wicket-taking achievement with a Women’s T20 International first of five dismissals in a row as she struck with the first two balls of her second over. This was all part of claiming the first nine Lesotho wickets to fall, but being denied the chance to take all 10 after a change of bowling following her third over. Her final wicket was Ret’sepile Limema, who fell to the fifth ball of the fifth over, with Cardoso replaced for the following over at that end. Her nine wickets, nevertheless, is the best return in either men’s or women’s T20 internationals.

The right-arm seamer did, indeed, come close to another hat-trick, when she claimed wickets with the last two balls of her second over, which itself totalled four victims.

Cardoso, who has has taken 55 wickets in 48 T20 matches for Brazil, replaces Indonesia’s Rohmalia Rohmalia at the top of the Women’s T20 best bowling rankings, as she finished with figures of 3-2-4-9.

Rohmalia had claimed seven wickets in 2024 in a match against Mongolia in Bali. Only three other women have claimed seven in a T20 international.

The men’s record, and the overall in the format, had been held by Bhutan’s Sonam Yeshey after ⁠he took eight wickets for seven ⁠runs against Myanmar ⁠last year.

The previous record for the number of wickets in consecutive deliveries was four, and was jointly held with the most prominent occasion in women’s cricket being when Shakera Selman pulled off the feat for the West Indies against Pakistan in 2018. Afghanistan’s Rashid Khan and Sri Lanka’s Lasith Malinga are among the most notable bowlers from the men’s game to have claimed four consecutively in the format.

Although a huge winning margin, Brazil’s overall win does not compare with Argentina’s record after they beat Chile by 364 runs in 2023. The Argentinians had struck 427-1 to set up their victory.

Lesotho’s part in the record extends to no further than Cardoso’s haul, with the record-lowest total belonging to Mali, who were bowled out for 6 in 2019 by Rwanda.

Brazil, ‌who lead the six-team tournament with five straight wins, play ‌Mozambique ‌on Friday.

[Aljazeera]

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Zimbabwe Women set for maiden tour of Pakistan

Published

2 days ago

2026/04/10

Priyan

Pakistan and Zimbabwe will play 3 ODIs and 3 T20Is [Cricbuzz]

Zimbabwe Women are set for their maiden tour to Pakistan for three ODIs and three T20Is.

The ODIs kick off on May 3 and will be part of the ICC Women’s Championship 2025-29. The T20I series will be played from May 12. All six matches will take place at the National Bank Stadium in Karachi.

Pakistan are currently placed fifth on the Women’s Championship table after a 2-1 series loss to South Africa. Zimbabwe are placed seventh after a three-match series loss to New Zealand.

Zimbabwe are scheduled to arrive in Pakistan on April 29.