Wellalage stars with bat to lead Sri Lanka to victory

Sri Lanka U19 captain Dunith Wellalage pulls a ball to leg during his match-winning century against South Africa U19 at Antigua

Raveen de Silva, the Sri Lanka U19 spinner celebrates the wicket of South Africa’s Michael Copeland

• Advances to fifth place play-off of ICC U19 Cricket World Cup 2022

(ICC): Sri Lanka defeated South Africa by 65 runs to advance to the fifth place play-off at the ICC Under-19 Men’s Cricket World Cup 2022.

Captain and the tournament’s leading wicket-taker Dunith Wellalage posted 113 for Sri Lanka as they set South Africa 233 to win.

The Proteas scored well but lost wickets cheaply as they were bundled out for 167 as Sri Lanka set up a meeting with either Bangladesh or Pakistan.

Sri Lanka won the toss and skipper Wellalage chose to bat and it was not long before the star man was out in the middle.

Openers Chamindu Wickramasinghe and Sadisha Rajapaksa could put on only 14 for the first-wicket stand as Kwena Maphaka bowled Rajapaksa.

The left-arm seamer then dismissed Wickramsinghe three balls later before Sakuna Liyanage went for an eight-ball duck to bring Wellalage out to the middle with Sri Lanka precarious on 25 for three.

Alongside Shevon Daniel, the skipper added 62 runs before forming an even more fruitful partnership with Ranuda Somaratne, putting on 130 runs for the fifth wicket.

Wellalage was eventually dismissed by Maphaka but only after hitting 113 off 130 for his first century of the tournament. Somaratne would end on 57 not out as Sri Lanka set South Africa a chase of 232, which would prove too much for the Proteas.

Opener Jade Smith was run out for one as Sri Lanka took regular wickets to stunt South Africa’s progress.

The usually free-flowing Dewald Brevis was next to go before Ronan Hermann and Gerhardus Maree added 34 and 44 respectively to move South Africa to 112 for six.

The Proteas were scoring above the required run rate but frequent dismissals hampered their progress as the Sri Lankan bowlers split the wickets between them.

Wicketkeeper Anjala Bandara took his second stumping to dismiss Maphaka as South Africa fell 67 runs short and will now go into the seventh place play-off.

Sri Lanka will play the winner of the second Super League Play-off semi-final between Bangladesh and Pakistan for fifth and sixth places.

Scores

nSri Lanka (U19) 232-6 (50) (Shevon Daniel 29, Dunith Wellalage 113, Ranuda Somaratne 57*, Matthew Boast 2/21, Kwena Maphaka 3/60)

nSouth Africa (U19) 167 (37.3) (Ronan Hermann 34, Gerhardsu Maree 44, Andile Simelane 20, Michael Copeland 20, Treveen Mathew 2/41, Shevon Daniel 2/28, Raveen de Silva 2/14)