SLSCC vs. HKU played at Sandy Bay on April 13th 2003

 

 

Braving the SARS & the overcast skies, SLSCC took on HKU at Sandy Bay.

 

There were masked men who resembled the musketteers, with players wearing mask of all shapes, from saucepan, plates, visors etc..... Await a clip by Bertram.S from his 007 camera of a shot of Buw Perera with a mask (see below).

 

As he is renowned to be lucky, Captain Troy Dias once again won the toss & decided to bat. That luck could not last for long, cover driving in the air, the first ball of the game Ajith Samarasekara was caught at deepish cover & thereby set the rot as wickets fell at frequent intervals. There was a brief moment of hope as the last recognise batsman Bertram Sinniah was around but he too perished & other than a brief knock by Channa Witana, the innings folded for a paltry 139 with Jerry Rajakulendran stranded without a partner for the first time with (02) overs to spare. Once again a notable performance came from Dayampathi  Subapanditha & chip-in by Haresh.V to prop-up the score to some decency.

 

Added to the misery of a measly score, SLSCC had only (03) frontline bowlers with no one of pace to partner the skipper. HKU got off to a flying start & was cruising at 72/1 at the 18th over. However, after the water break, things turn to go against the tide in that, runs began to dry up for the HKU & the overs were being consumed rapidly in the process. There was one brief moment opportunity when the tide could have been in favour of SLSCC. With a breakthrough by Bertram Sinniah, there was that trade mark stumping of Buw Perera (who later envisaged that it would be his last in Hongkong - only time will tell ) and SLSCC tail was up but let the HKU off the hook once more when in one Haresh Vaswani over, the bowler failed to bend down to accept the wicket and whispers were heard that he has this bending problem & the habit of running round the ball & Jerry.R failed to get his hands to a ball.

 

With the completion of mandatory overs by the (03) front line bowlers, other part timers managed to stall HKU advance and the host just scrambled to annilate the SLSCC total with just 1.3 overs to spare.

 

Nevertheless, it was a good fight back & SLSCC were able to make a match of it. The atmosphere among the players was fine & the game was played in fine spirit and had a nail biting finish.

 

Full Scores:

SLSCC 139 all out (33 overs) 

HKU 140 for 3 (33.3 overs)   

 

 

 Ajith Samarasekera

 

 

 

Posted April 13 2003