Unbeaten SLT team in Mercantile G’ Division cricket tournament finals

Sri Lanka Telecom leads the 25-over ‘G’ Division Mercantile Cricket Tournament in 2017 after emerging as the only unbeaten team in Group D en route to qualifying for the finals. 

The SLT team won their semi-final by 31 runs against the HNB ‘B’ to qualify for the finals. Prior to that, the SLT team won the pre-quarterfinal match by eight wickets, competing against DIMO ‘B’ team. SLT beat Pyramid Wilmar in the quarterfinal match by eight runs and qualified for the semi-final round. The SLT team was captained by Malinda Perera with Kasun Amarasinghe serving as the Vice Captain, Harsha Weerasinghe functioning as the dedicated team manager of the SLT Cricket Association and former Sri Lanka ‘A’ team player Padmanath Perera guiding the team as head coach.

The tournament, conducted by the Mercantile Cricket Association, with the participation of 49 teams representing eight groups, was held at multiple cricketing grounds in Colombo and its suburbs. 

SLT won their opening match by 82 runs, beating the JAT Holdings team. Nirushan Ramachandra scored 80 runs from 52 deliveries on behalf of SLT. The SLT team beat SriLankan Airlines in their second match by 19 runs. Kalpa Bandaranayake of SLT scored 71 runs from 36 deliveries. In their third match, Pearson Lanka was beaten by SLT by 57 runs after SLT scored a total of 211/5 after winning the toss. In this match 89 runs were scored from 51 deliveries by SLT’s Bandaranayake. 

In their next match with Mobitel ‘B’, SLT managed to tie the game by restricting Mobitel ‘B’ to 122 runs by the end of 25 overs for the loss of nine wickets. SLT scored their highest total of the season - 238 in 25 overs for 6 wickets - in their sixth match of the tournament against the ShipXpress team by getting them all out for 87 runs in 19.1 overs. The sixth match before the quarterfinals was played against Avian Technologies and SLT beat them by nine wickets, finishing the group stages unbeaten within Group D for the first time.