St. Benedict’s likely to get new life at top Tier

Promotions and Demotions of Under 19 Cricket tournament

by Reemus Fernando

The future of Mahanama College Colombo in the Under 19 Cricket tournament will be decided by Sri Lanka Schools Cricket Association shortly, after the school serving a suspension from the ongoing tournament failed to move the courts against the sports governing body.

Mahanama pulled out from the quarter-final against Trinity on the second day of the match aledging that the ground staff had prepared the wicket earlier than the scheduled time preventing the bowling side (Mahanama) from taking advantage of the conditions in the morning. In response, SLSCA barred Mahanama from the entire tournament.

A senior official of the SLSCA said that the executive committee of the association will soon take a decision regarding the future of Mahanama College. On previous occasions schools violating tournament rules were severely dealt with, imposing bans and demoting teams to lower divisions.

In the case of Mahanama getting demoted, St. Benedict’s will hae a new life in the Tier ‘A’ tournament. At the end of the relegation matches, Maliyadewa College Kurunegala and St. Benedict’s College, Kotahena were the lowest placed teams and are slated to be demoted to Tier ‘B’.

In Tier ‘B’, Holy Cross College Kalutara and Tissa Central Kalutara are the teams getting demoted as they ended up with the lowest points after the relegation league. A surprising outright victory by St. Sylvester’s against Tissa in the relegation matches secured the Tier B place of the Kandy team.

Their places in the top Division will be filled by St. Joseph Vaz’s College, Wennappuwa and Dharmaloka College Kelaniya who were the finalists of the Division II Tier ‘A’ tournament.

The former Division I team Kingswood College and Vidyaloka College Galle are the teams getting promoted to Tier ‘A’ after doing well in the Tier ‘B’ of the Division II tournament.

The teams advancing to Division II from the top Tier of the Division III tournament are Sri Sumangala College Hikkaduwa and St. Mary’s College Chilaw.

The other teams getting demoted to lower divisions are Galahitiyawa Central and St. Peter’s Negombo (from Division II Tier ‘A’) and Siri Piyarathana, Padukka and St. Mary’s Kegalle (from Division II Tier ‘B’).

Karunaratne Buddhist School and Wanduraba Central are demoted from Tier ‘A’ of the Division III tournament for not honouring their tournament commitments.