Sports

St. Joseph’s, De Mazenod, Mahanama, Richmond battle for final spot

Published

4 years ago

2022/04/5

Sahan Weerasooriya

Under 19 Division I Tier ‘A’ Cricket

by Reemus Fernando

Defending champions St. Joseph’s are the favourites against giant killers De Mazenod while, Mahanama have the edge over Richmond when they battle it out in the semi-finals of the Under 19 Division I Tier ‘A’ cricket tournament today.

St. Joseph’s V De Mazenod

St. Joseph’s

having in their ranks three Sri Lanka Under 19 players are unbeaten in the tournament. After emerging as the champions in their group with victories against St. Anthony’s, Katugastota, St. Benedict’s, St. Sebastian’s, S. Thomas’, Mount Lavinia and St. Thomas’, Matara, they romped to six wickets victory over Wesley in the quarter-final.

De Mazenod put up a fine team performance to eliminate Nalanda, one of the favourites in the quarter-final, after reaching the knockout stage as the runners up to Mahanama in group ‘Z’. They had just three victories under their belt at the end of the league stage.

The team from Kandana have put up combined efforts to reach this far. In today’s match De Mazenod will consider bringing in spinner Pramod Rajamunindra in place of paceman Thushan Udayanga depending on the condition of the wicket at Surrey Village Ground.

Opponents of De Mazenod did not see much of Rajamunindra during this tournament. If he gets the opportunity, the Joes will be up against a complete spin attack consisting of Senash Fernando, Sithum Fernando and Thareen Sanketh.

There is no denying the fact that the Joes will be the stronger team in that department with their spin squadron braced with bowlers who faced the best in the world in their age category at the ICC Youth World Cup. Skipper Shevon Daniel makes a terrific combination with Sri Lanka Under 19 captain Dunith Wellalage, who is the leading wicket taker of the tournament.

St. Joseph’s

are likely to field an unchanged side with Daniel, who is also the leading scorer of the team occupying the third spot in the batting line up. Sadeesh Jayawardena who has produced some outstanding batting performances on return from the Youth World Cup will open batting with Hirun Matheesha. They have a strong and long batting line up with Wellalage joining in the middle order.

For De Mazenod skipper Ruveen Fonseka produced his best batting effort during the quarter-final and will have Salindu Pathirana, Mithul Senerath and Ashen Silva among others to form a formidable line up. The last three have maintained an averaged over 40.

St. Joseph’s (probable)

Shevon Daniel (Captain), Sadeesh Jayawardena , Hirun Matheesha, Mithira Thenura, Dunith Wellalage, Hiran Jayasundara, Muditha Lakshan, Rishma Amarasinghe, Deshan Senaviratne, Lahiru Amarasekara, Yenula Dewthusa.

De Mazenod (from) Ruveen Fonseka (Captain), Lester Jayaweera, Mithul Senerath, Senash Fernando, Salindu Pathirana, Chanuka Silva, Sithum Fernando, Sihina Sithumina, Ashen Silva, Thushan Udayanga, Thareen Sanketh, Pramod Rajamunindra.

Richmond V Mahanama

Mahanama captained by Devindu Kekirideniya are in terrific form after maintaining an unbeaten record to reach the semi-final. They rattled St. Benedict’s for 93 runs in the quarter-final before cruising to seven wickets victory.

Their leading wicket takers, left armers skipper Kekirideniya and Inuka Karannagoda did not have to worry much in the quarter-final after Koojana Perera did most of the damage. They will be looking to repeat the same against Richmond at today’s match at Reid Avenue.

Kavindu Amameth, Perera and the new recruit from Kandy Anjala Bandara, Sachira Weliwatta and Dhanaja Edirisinghe are the top scorers who are forming the backbone of the batting line up.

Richmond skippered by Bhanuka Manohara are a fighting outfit who have the fire-power with the batsmen rallying around Manohara and Tharinda Nirmal. Janeth Kaushal and Thamindu Pradeeptha are the others who have made notable contributions.

Spinner Sharon Abishek, speedster Kalpa Nethsara and former Madampa Central spinner Malsha Tharupathi will form a strong bowling attack for Richmond. Richmond beat St. Anthony’s, Katugastota according to D/L Method in the quarter-final after reaching the knockout stage with three victories under their belt.

Ricmond (from): Bhanuka Manohara (Captain), Kalpa Nethsara, Kavindu Nirmana, Vishara Sasmitha, Tharinda Nirmal, Ruwan Jayawardena, Janeth Kaushal, Maheesha Vethmin, Hansamana de Silva, Sharon Abishek, Malsha Tharupathi, Thamindu Pradeeptha, Chehan Subasinghe, Sihath Ramanayake, Imesh Sasindu, Seneth Sisan, Kaveesha Induwara, Sanahas Ramindu, Manuja Dulneth, Stephan Selvanayagam.

Mahanama (from): Devindu Kekirideniya (Captain), Viranga Yeshan, Omesh Udara, Sachira Weliwatte, Nihindu Perera, Duvindu Perera, Sethum Kenula, Anjala Bandara, Dasith Gunathilake, Koojana Perera, Inuka Karannagoda, Nadeesh Yasiru, Kavindu Amameth, Chanuja Sandalindu, Bhanula Algewatte, Tharindu Lakshan, Anuk Wijewardhane, Ruveen Sankalpa, Hasith Hansindu, Venuk Hettiarachchi.

Under 19 Division I Tier ‘A’ Semi-Finals

St. Joseph’s V De Mazenod at Surrey Village Ground

Richmond V Mahanama at Reid Avenue

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Sooryavanshi ton in vain as Sunrisers Hyderabad raze a 229 chase

Published

7 hours ago

2026/04/26

Priyan

Vaibhav Sooryavanshi salutes after hitting a century [Cricinfo]

Twelve days after defeating Rajasthan Royals [RR] by nullifying Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Sunrisers Hyderabad [SRH] defeated them in spite of an astonishing innings from the boy wonder.

Sooryavanshi scored his second IPL hundred, getting there off just 36 balls, and struck a six every third ball before his dismissal. The rest of RR’s batting, however, struggled around him. Sooryavanshi made 103 off 37 balls, and his colleagues and extras combined to score 125 off 83.

It wasn’t clear at the innings break whether 228 for 6 would be enough for RR, on a day when Punjab Kings (PBKS) had broken the T20 record by chasing down 265 with an over to spare. It wasn’t, and this was because SRH were able to fire at both ends where RR only went from one. A red-hot Jofra Archer dismissed Travis Head in the first over, but Abhishek Sharma and Ishan Kishan quickly took over, enjoying their share of luck in a match where the two teams combined to put down seven chances (there had been nine drops in the Delhi Capitals-PBKS game).

Individually, neither Abhishek nor Kishan matched Sooryavanshi for pace of scoring. Together, though, they comfortably outscored Sooryavanshi and Dhruv Jurel, who had put on RR’s biggest partnership – 112 off 62 balls for the second wicket. Abhishek and Kishan put on 132 off just 55, and when Donovan Ferreira broke their partnership, SRH needed just nine an over in the last 10. They got home with an over and a half to spare.

Praful Hinge had made an eye-catching debut in the reverse fixture, taking a match-winning four-for that began with the wicket of Sooryavanshi. On this day, Sooryavanshi had his revenge. He faced five balls of Hinge in the first over of the match, after SRH had chosen to bowl. First a dot – a play and miss. And then 6, 6, 6, 6. Hinge began short and kept getting gradually fuller, and Sooryavanshi put everything away: a pull, a whip over backward square leg, and two clean, flowing hits down the ground.

It took until the last ball of the second over for Sooryavanshi to get on strike again, and now he was facing Pat Cummins – playing his first competitive game since the Adelaide Ashes Test in December – for the first time in his life. Cummins bowled a good short ball, angling across the left-hander and climbing, but Sooryavanshi picked the length in a flash and swatted it for another six, well in front of square. He had faced six balls and hit five sixes.

Sooryavanshi was never going to keep up that rate of scoring, but he didn’t slow down by much at all. He finished the powerplay on 51 off 16, along the way getting to a 15-ball half-century for the third time this season, and getting to 1000 runs in fewer balls than anyone in T20 history. He had also enjoyed one major slice of luck, Aniket Verma putting him down off Eshan Malinga on the leg-side boundary, when he was on 32.

Sooryavanshi kept hitting boundaries at an absurd rate even when the fields spread, showing he could innovate to disrupt bowlers’ plans: a reverse-swat over backward point, for instance, forced left-arm wristspinner Shivang Kumar into a fuller, straighter follow-up that he launched over wide long-on for six.

Another attempt at innovation – he opened up and shaped to reverse-scoop – led to his wicket off a Sakib Hussain yorker in the 14th over, but he had hit his Bihar team-mate for 6, 4, 6 before that to bring up his century. It was only his second-quickest century in the IPL – his maiden hundred, against Gujarat Titans last year, had come off 35 balls.

He now has the second and third quickest centuries in the history of the IPL. He’s only 15.

While the Sooryavanshi whirlwind raged at one end, SRH’s bowlers found life significantly easier at the other. Jurel struggled for fluency early on, and despite a late flurry of boundaries only managed 51 off 35. Riyan Parag, enduring a miserable season, was out for 7 of 9, bowled by a terrific Cummins yorker with late tail.

Cummins and Eshan Malinga used the yorker brilliantly at the back end of the innings, and only Ferreira (33 off 16) managed to break free of SRH’s post-Sooryavanshi shackles.

Archer produced a chance with the first ball of SRH’s innings, his pace, bounce, constricting line, and angle from over the wicket producing a nervy jab and edge from Travis Head. Jurel, diving left, put it down.

There were two plays and misses in the next three balls (one was adjudged wide), and then a bit of width that Head carved for six. But just when Jurel may have wondered how costly his miss would be, Archer bowled another Test-match jaffa, squaring Head up, and this time the edge settled nicely in Jurel’s gloves.

The drama wasn’t done yet; the last ball of the over was a searing bouncer, and Kishan, taking his eyes off the ball while looking to fend it away, edged it for six over fine leg.

That proved to be a bit of a sign in the early exchanges. There was luck early on for Abhishek too; an edge over slip in the second over off Nandre Burger, and two missed chances – one from Shimron Hetmyer who lost the ball in its flight, one from Ravindra Jadeja who put down a sitter – in the fourth and fifth overs.

Either side of those chances, the two left-handers peppered the boundary, particularly by piercing or going over the off-side ring when the bowlers offered width. Some of this was down to mis-executed plans: Tushar Deshpande, for instance, looked to hide the ball away from their hitting arc with protection square and behind square on the off side, but he didn’t quite find the line control on the day.

The presence of two left-handers also meant RR went with the part-time offspin of Parag and Ferreira before either of their frontline spinners. By the time Ravi Bishnoi and Jadeja came on in the 11th and 12th overs, the match was nearly done, and they ended up bowling just an over each. Heinrich Klaasen (29 off 24) and Nitish Kumar Reddy (36 off 18) took SRH to the doorstep of their target before both fell late in the chase.

Brief scores:
Sunrisers Hyderabad 229 for 5 in 18.3 overs (Abhishek Sharma 57, Ishan Kishan 74, Heinrich Klassen 29, Nitish Kumar Reddy 36; Jofra Archer 2-34, Brijesh Sharma 2-44,Donovan Ferreira 1-14) beat Rajasthan Royals 228 for 6 in 20 overs (Yashasvi Jaiswal 10, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi 103, Dhruv Jurel 51, Donovan Ferreira 33, Shimron Hetmyer 11; Praful Hinge 1-49, Pat Cummins 1-27, Eshan Malinga 2-38, Sakib Hussain 1-62, Nitish Kumar Reddy 1-20) by five wickets

[Cricinfo]

Latest News

Prabhsimran, Shreyas upstage Rahul’s 152* to mow down record T20 chase

Published

7 hours ago

2026/04/26

Priyan

KL Rahul became the first Indian batter to score 150 in the IPL [cRICINFO]

Punjab Kings (PBKS) overpowered Delhi Capitals (DC) and pulled off the highest successful T20 chase in an IPL bash where 265 met 264. They mowed down the target with six wickets and seven balls to spare. The opening blitz from Priyansh Arya and Prabhsimran Singh – they hit 116 together in the powerplay – and captain Shreyas Iyer’s chancy yet composed 71 not out off 36 balls upstaged KL Rahukl’s unbeaten 152 off 67 balls on a flat Delhi pitch.

Before the start of the chase, ESPNcricinfo’s Forecaster had PBKS’ win probability pegged at 14.83%. It zoomed up to 65.35% after Arya and Prabhsimran went on a ruthless boundary-hitting spree in the powerplay. Both openers fell in successive overs to spin, but Shreyas then took charge of the chase and increased that count to 100%.

Rahul’s knock could’ve been cut short on 12 had Shashank Singh not dropped a regulation catch at deep square leg. Shashank lost his shape and ended up knocking the ball away to the boundary. After dropping at least three chances in their previous game against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), Shashank spilled another chance on Saturday, leaving coach Ricky Ponting upset in the dugout.

Shashank fumbled again in the fifth over of the powerplay, running to his right from sweeper cover and letting the ball roll into the boundary. By the time the powerplay ended, DC ran away to 68 for 1, their highest powerplay score this season.

Rahul was responsible for 35 of those from 16 balls, having repeatedly hit the ball over the top. Rana was also quick off the blocks, moving to 22 off 13 balls. Prabhsimran and Arya later made those powerplay scores look pedestrian.

In the past, Rahul often slowed down after the powerplay, but on Saturday, he didn’t allow the momentum to let up. He step-hit Yuzvendra Chahal for six over long-on in the seventh over and proceeded to step out of his crease and pick the legspinner away for back-to-back fours in the 11th over. By then, Rahul had already raised his half-century off 26 balls. He got another life on 51 when he popped up a return catch, but Vijaykumar Vyshak couldn’t hold onto it.

Rahul went on to bring up his fastest IPL century, off 47 balls. He reached the landmark with a drilled drive down the ground off Marco Jansen in the 15th over. He celebrated by crossing his arms in the form of an ‘X’ and had more than 28,000 fans at the Arun Jaitley Stadium celebrating with him.

At the other end, Nitish Rana looked set to bring up a hundred of his own until Xavier Bartlett had him caught by Shreyas at mid-off for 91 off 44 balls to snap a 220-run stand – the highest for DC. In the 11 balls prior to his dismissal, Rana had cracked 44 off the Australia quick, including a sequence of 6,4,4,4,4,6 in the 12th over that cost PBKS 28 runs.

Rana wasn’t as fluent against Chahal, but Rahul had made up for it at the other end. Rahul went from 100 to 150 in just 19 balls. He got there with a superbly controlled upper cut off a lifter from Arshdeep Singh on the penultimate ball of the innings.

Rahul became the first Indian to score 150 or more in the IPL and third overall behind only Chris Gayle’s 175* against Pune Warriors India (PWI) in 2013 and Brendon McCullum’s 158* against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in 2008. He batted through 20 overs and vaulted DC to their highest total. At the innings break, Rahul was so knackered that he was panting for breath through his interview on a 41-degree day in Delhi.

Prabhsimran and Delhi boy, Arya, then left the crowd breathless in the chase with their unfettered assault in the powerplay. It began with Arya pumping a fairly blameless length delivery on off from Auqib Nabi over midwidcket for six and ended with four by Prabhsimran, which propelled PBKS to 116 for 0 in six overs. It was the second-highest powerplay score in the history of the IPL, falling nine short of levelling the record set by Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) against DC at this very venue in 2024.

PBKS had passed fifty in the third over when Arya crunched Axar Patel for six and then Prabhsimran muscled them past hundred in the final over of the powerplay with an over full of fours against seamer Mukesh Kumar.

DC clawed back into the contest when their spinners Axar and Kuldeep Yadav dismissed PBKS’ openers in the seventh and eighth overs. Kuldeep struck again in the tenth over when he stormed through Cooper Connolly’s defences with a zippy wrong’un, leaving PBKS at 145 for 3 in the tenth over. Shreyas then managed the chase so well that PBKS ended up winning with more than an over to spare.

Shreyas got cracking when he pumped legspinner Vipraj Nigam into the sight screen in the 11th over. Nigam had come into the DC side as a concussion sub for Lungi Ngidi, who was taken to the hospital in an ambulance after suffering a blow to his head while attempting a catch off Arya at mid-off. Nigam created a chance to dismiss Shreyas on 28, but Karun Nair, who came in as a fielding sub, dropped a sitter at long-off in the 15th over. Two balls later, Nair dropped Shreyas once again, this time at long-on off Kuldeep.

Lungi Ngidi banged his head on the ground while he looked to take a catch [Cricinfo]

Shreyas went 4,6,6 off the next three legal balls to tilt the game PBKS’ way. The second six over long-on brought Shreyas a half-century off 26 balls. He also lined up T Natarajan for a brace of sixes to rush PBKS home along with Shashank.

Brief scores:
Punjab Kings 265 for 4 in 18.5 overs (Priyansh Arya 43, Prabhsimran Singh 76, Cooper Connolly 17, Shreyas Iyer 71*, Nehal Wadhera 25, Shashank Singh 19*; Axar Patel 1-44, Kuldeep Yadav 2-46, Vipraj Nigam 1-24) beat Delhi Capitals 264 for 2 in 20 overs (Pathum Nissanka 11, KL Rahul 152*, Nitish Rana, 91; Arshdeep 1-49, Xavier Bartlett 1-69) by six wickets

[Cricinfo]

Sports

Power World joins hands with Kings Hospital

Published

12 hours ago

2026/04/26

Thilina Walpola

Left to Right: Christopher Prins – Head of Corporate Partnerships of Power World Gyms; Sohan Colombage, Vice President, Marketing – JXG (Janashakthi Group); Anil Jayatunga, Deputy General Manager of Power World Gyms; Thanushka Jayasundera, Director/CEO of Power World Gyms; Badrajith Siriwardana, Chief Executive Officer of Kings Hospital Colombo; Dilip Weeraman, Deputy General Manager of Kings Hospital Colombo, Sales & Marketing; Aasiri Ediriweera – Head of Human Resources of Kings Hospital Colombo

Power World Gyms, Sri Lanka’s leading fitness brand with over 30 years of promoting healthier lifestyles, has partnered with Kings Hospital Colombo as its Official Wellness Partner. This collaboration brings together expertise in fitness and healthcare to introduce a dedicated wellness programme for the hospital’s staff, supporting their physical and mental well-being. Through this partnership, Power World reinforces its commitment to making fitness and preventive wellness accessible, impactful and sustainable for those who care for our communities every day.