TC completes successful domestic cricket season amid COVID-19

Leading wicket-taker Duvindu Tillakaratne of BRC with 61 wickets

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

The Tournament Committee of Sri Lanka Cricket could pat themselves on the back for resuming the Premier League Tier ‘A’ tournament amid the challenges posed by COVID-19, and completing it successfully under strict health guidelines, which enabled the country’s national cricketers, starved of any international cricket since the first week of March, to get some kind of competition under their belts.

The tournament came to an abrupt halt at the end of the first round of matches in March due to the pandemic, and there seemed to be no signs of any cricket, or for that matter any sport resuming.   

However the Tournament Committee headed by Bandula Dissanayake had the full backing of the SLC membership to resume the suspended Tier ‘A’ matches in August (with the situation gradually improving) with changes adopted and approved at an Extraordinary General Meeting where matches of 4 days duration were reduced to 3 days, and Tier ‘A’ and ‘B’ relegation and promotion was suspended for the 2019-20 season. These changes in the tournament rules were effective only for the 2019-20 season, due to the present situation in the country.

The venues for the matches were picked by the TC which ensured that they had control over the matches that had to be played according to the health guidelines issued by the Sports Medicine Unit. In the absence of similar control by the TC for Tier ‘B’, the second round matches of this section were not played.

For the first time in many moons, virtually all the national players made themselves available to play in the domestic sphere, which was a healthy sign for the competition. Former Sri Lanka captain Angelo Mathews for instance appeared in a first-class match for his club Colts after seven years, and there were other national players as well like Niroshan Dickwella, who last played for NCC in 2016-17, and CCC captain Kusal Mendis in 2017-18.

Mendis, one of the bright sparks of the national team, was in sparkling form. Laden with the captaincy Mendis took on the responsibility extremely well in his stride to lead CCC to retain the Premier League Tier A title for yet another year. Unavailable for the first round because of national duty, he played two notable innings that were decisive in CCC winning the title. In a high scoring game against NCC who ended as runner-up, Mendis produced his maiden double century to ensure CCC got the vital first innings points that ensured them of the title, and then in the final match against Chilaw Marians CC after his side was bowled out for 287 and trailed by 171 runs on the first innings, he produced another big knock 157, which along with stand-in captain Ashan Priyanjan who scored an equally brilliant innings of 170, guaranteed a draw.

The unusually extended season began and ended with a batsman scoring a triple century. Moors SC’s middle order batsman Ramesh Mendis hit an unbeaten 300 against Negombo CC in the opening weekend, and former Sri Lanka captain Dinesh Chandimal finished the season off in style by scoring an undefeated 354 for Sri Lanka Army against Saracens SC in the final weekend.

Chandimal was one of two players to cross the 1,000-run mark for the season. NCC opener Lahiru Udara was the first to reach four figures, and he was easily the leading run-getter with 1039 runs from 9 matches. Udara was unfortunate not to reach a triple century when he ran out of partners and was left stranded on 290 not out in NCC’s match against Ragama CC.

The bowling honours went to Duvindu Tillakaratne, son of former Sri Lanka Test captain Hashan Tillakaratne. A slow left-arm orthodox bowler, Duvindu went through the best season of his short career with a haul of 61 wickets for BRC from 9 matches, which was 11 more than the next best CCC’s Malinda Pushpakumara and Upul Indrasiri of Negombo CC with 50 wickets apiece. Coincidentally the top three wicket-takers were all left-arm spinners.

Saracens SC’s 22-year-old wicket-keeper Navindu Vithanage made the most dismissals for the season with 38 (34c, 4st) from 10 matches and Negombo CC’s Angelo Jayasinghe held the most number of catches by a fielder with 22 from 9 matches.