Sinhalese Sports Club produced a stirring run chase in their final group game of the ongoing domestic 50 over tournament, edging out Bloomfield to book their place in the semi-finals.

Set a daunting target of 330, SSC romped home in just 46.4 overs, with former international Avishka Fernando leading the charge with a superb 138 off 114 deliveries, studded with 15 fours and four sixes.

Avishka received excellent support from Nuwanindu Fernando (57) and Nipun Dananjaya (69), both of whom posted half-centuries, before Dunith Wellalage applied the finishing touches with an unbeaten 30 off just 19 deliveries, including one four and three sixes.

Bloomfield had earlier piled up a formidable total thanks largely to Janith Liyanage, who hammered 165 off 130 deliveries with 18 fours and five sixes.

SSC will now meet CCC in Monday’s semi-final, while Colts will take on Moors in the other last-four clash on the same day. The final will be played on Friday.

CCC topped the table in the other group following another high scoring encounter. Kamindu Mendis, stripped of the Sri Lanka vice-captaincy on Wednesday, responded in emphatic fashion less than 24 hours later, opening the batting and smashing 139 off 129 deliveries with 11 fours and six sixes.

He was involved in a mammoth 268 run opening stand with Lasith Croospulle, who made 148. Pavan Rathnayake then chipped in with an unbeaten half-century, while Test sensation Sonal Dinusha, leading CCC, suffered the rare indignity of a first-ball duck.

CCC eventually amassed 369 for five from their 50 overs. Tamil Union, in reply, could manage only 297 despite a century from Sineth Jayawardene.

Colts topped their group with five wins from six games and yesterday recorded a comprehensive 72 run win over Police.

Batting first, Colts posted 266 for six, with Sangeeth Cooray and Muditha Lakshan contributing half-centuries. Police were then shot out for 194 inside 40 overs.

Panadura SC, Ace Capital and BRC also recorded wins yesterday but were unable to press their claims for a semi-final berth.

There have been several high-scoring encounters during the tournament, with Sri Lanka Cricket placing considerable emphasis on producing good batting surfaces for both domestic and international cricket.

A Chamari Athapaththu seven-wicket haul and Nilakshika Silva’s 50 off 35 saw defending champions Sri Lanka withstand a valiant Indonesian side to register a resounding 75-run victory in their Asia Cup match in Dubai.

Athapaththu was undoubtedly the pick of the bowlers, as she started and finished Indonesia’s slide with career best figures of 7 for 05, inclusive of a hat-trick – nearly two in fact. Chasing a target of 125, the opening pair of Maria Corazon and Rahmawati Pangestuti struck 16 runs in the first two overs, but once spin came into play scoring slowed down to a trickle and Indonesia were eventually bowled out for 49 in the 19th over.

Sri Lanka, too, had found it tough to combat Indonesia’s mix of spin and slow-medium seamers as they stumbled to 62 for 6 in the 13th over, but their innings received a timely boost as Nilakshika countered with a trademark back-against-the-wall effort to drag her side to a total that seemed about par on a pretty sluggish surface. In the end it proved to be plenty.

Sri Lanka struggle early on

Having been put in to bat on a fresh surface, Sri Lanka were perhaps guilty of a little complacency against their less-fancied opponents. Time and again the top order sought to find the boundary, and time and again they failed to find their timing.

On a wicket where the ball was hardly coming on, the Sri Lankan batters’ tunnel vision focused squarely on boundary hitting and eschewed strike rotation; there were 19 dot balls in a powerplay that had fetched 31 runs for the loss of two wickets.

By the halfway point of the innings, the dot count had risen to 28. The scorecard, meanwhile, read 47 for 5. Indonesia, to their credit, did well to bowl to their fields and frustrate the Lankan batters.

Sanjana Kavindi got to double-digits with a pair of nicely struck boundaries, but she was the only one of Sri Lanka’s top five to do so – and she was eventually done in on 15 missing an attempted cut on a straight one.

Nilakshika brings the Silva-lining

With recognised batting fast running out, Sri Lanka needed someone to take control of the innings, and as she has done so often over recent years it was Nilakshika that stood up to be counted.

She first strung together 17 off 18 with Kaushini Nuthyangana, but when Nuthyangana fell Nilakshika produced a masterclass in batting with the tail. She cajoled Kawya Kavindi to keep rotating the strike, and when the opportunity arose she was unerring in finding the boundaries – including Sri Lanka’s first and only six of the innings in the penultimate over.

Nilakshika Silva’s fifty rescued Sri Lanka [ACC]

Their seventh-wicket partnership eventually ended on 50 off 36, reached simultaneously alongside side Nilakshika’s fifty – her third in T20Is – but by then she had already ushered her side to safety.

Athapaththu steals the show

In Chethana Vimukthi, Sri Lanka might have their first ever genuine fast bowler but on a wicket where the ball was not quite coming on, pace never seemed like the answer. For the first two overs of the chase, Indonesia’s openers did well to find boundaries against Vimukthi and and fellow seamer Kawya, but then Sri Lanka introduced their spinners.

Athapaththu promptly castled Pangestuti before removing Corazon and Rada Rani off consecutive deliveries in her next over. Here she missed her hat-trick by a whisker, a yorker narrowly missing Desi Wulandari’s off stump.

She brought herself back into the attack in the 14th and removed Nanda Sakarini, and she capped things off by achieving her hat-trick at the second time of asking, taking three wickets off what proved to be the final three deliveries of the innings.

Scores:

Sri Lanka Women

124 for 7 in 20 overs (Sanjana Kavindi 15, Nilakshika Silva 50, Kawya Kavindi 15*; Ni Ariani 1-23, Sang Maypriani 2-15, Ni Luh Dewi 3-32, Sofia Velic 1-21) beat Indonesia Women 49 all out in 18.3 overs (Rahmawati Pangestudi 10, Ni Made Putri Suwandevi 12; Kavya Kavindi 1-14, Sugandika Kumari 1-03, Chamari Athapaththu 7-05, Kavisha Dilhari 1-02) by 75 runs

[Cricinfo]

The inaugural six-team Women’s Champions Trophy has been moved from Sri Lanka to India, and will be played in Mumbai and Vadodara from February 14 to 28 next year.

The Brabourne Stadium and the Vadodara International Cricket Stadium will host the T20 tournament. Despite losing the hosting rights because of government interference in their cricket board, Sri Lanka will still be part of the tournament, having qualified after being in the top six of the T20I rankings on the July 6 qualification cut-off date. Australia, England, India, New Zealand and South Africa are the other teams.

According to a media release, the ICC assessed three candidates – Bangladesh, India and South Africa – against its established host evaluation criteria before recommending India as the replacement host on Wednesday.