Sri Lanka Under-19 take honours in drawn first Youth Test

• Kalupahana, Maneesha the stand-out players

The first Under-19 Youth Test between Sri Lanka and England petered out into a rain-affected draw at Wormsley on Thursday with Sri Lanka taking the honours.

Any hopes of a result was dulled when the second day was completely washed out, after which Sri Lanka controlled the contest to earn a deserved 77-run first-innings lead. Sri Lanka U19s then batted out the remainder of the match to be 192-4 when stumps were called.

Skipper Dinura Kalupahana’s century on the third day was followed by leg-spinner Praveen Maneesha’s 6/56 on the fourth and final day, when England was dismissed for 247 in reply to Sri Lanka’s total of 324.

The highlight of Sri Lanka’s second innings was the half-century scored by wicket-keeper/batsman Sharujan Shanmuganathan. Shanmuganathan was composed in reaching 73 off 118 balls (10 fours) before swiping at Jaydn Denly and being caught in the deep by Farhan Ahmed, who also held the catch to remove Gayana Weerasinghe off Daavya Sharma.

England Men’s Under-19 Captain Hamza Shaikh said: “They (Sri Lanka) showed they are a very good team and we know that, against them, we have to show up and have our minds on the job if we want to do well in the second test. We are a team that wants to look at how we can be positive and win the game so we will go to Cheltenham and see what we can do.”

The two teams head for Cheltenham for a series decider with the second test scheduled to commence on 16 July.

Scores: 

Sri Lanka (Unde-19) 324 and 192-4 (Pulindu Perera 34, Sadew Samarasinghe 20, Sharujan Shanmuganathan 73, Gayana Weerasinghe 33, Mahith Perera 20*, Jaydn Denly 2/57)

England (Under-19) 247.