Important five days for players to showcase their form

Deadline for final selection of 15 for Champions Trophy is April 25:

Sri Lanka Cricket’s Super provincial limited-over tournament which is being used as a pre-cursor to selections for the ICC Champions Trophy in England in June will resume after an eight-day break for the Sinhala and Tamil New Year with Kandy taking on Colombo at the NCC grounds and Galle meeting Dambulla at the Dambulla Stadium today.

The matches from today followed by ones scheduled for April 22 and 24 will be crucial to the players participating in the tournament to showcase their current form ahead of the final selection of 15 players which every participating country in the Champions Trophy has to name before the ICC deadline of April 25.

The matches from April 22 onwards will all be played under lights right upto the final on April 30.

Dasun Shanaka and Dinesh Chandimal

Kandy led by the enigmatic Chamara Kapugedera have been the dominant team in the tournament so far running up totals in excess of 300 in each of their two matches and winning them. In the first match they chased down 348 against Galle and won by a whisker (one wicket) with three balls to spare and, the second match against Dambulla also proved to be a heart-stopping affair with Kandy running out winners by 19 runs.

What is heartening to note is the frequency with which teams like Kandy, Galle and Dambulla have topped the 300-run mark which in today’s context of ODI cricket is the benchmark total. Colombo who lie bottom of the table with no wins are the only team that has not reached that figure so far.

With the present prevailing hot weather conditions whatever tracks that are prepared for the matches have turned out to be flat and the parched outfields have led to a spate of boundaries being scored. Although the batsmen are enjoying a good time out in the middle it is the bowlers who find themselves at the receiving end with some of them struggling even to bowl four-over spells because of the intense heat and humidity that is sapping their energies.

The conditions under which these matches are being played is a far cry from what the team will experience in England with the ball wobbling around in temperatures less than 70 degrees.

SLC however announced that the selected squad will spend time in high altitude training in Kandy and Diyatalawa to simulate the conditions the players will play under when they are in England and also that the team would leave for England eight days ahead to play two warm-up matches in Scotland to enable them to acclimatize to English weather conditions.

So far the Super Provincial tournament has witnessed some exceptional batting performances from Dasun Shanaka, Lahiru Madushanka, Chamara Kapugedera, Sadeera Samarawickrama, Dinesh Chandimal, and from Harsha Cooray, Dimuth Karunaratne, Lahiru Milantha, Hashan Dumindu, Malindu Hasaranga and Ramith Rambukwella.

The bowlers on the other hand have taken a beating except on a couple of occasions when they were able to gain the upperhand especially with fast bowler Lahiru Gamage taking 4/46 in Kandy’s win over Dambulla and left-arm spinner Malinda Pushpakumara of Galle returning the best bowling of the tournament so far with 5/29 against Colombo who were dismissed for the lowest total 114.

[REMAINING MATCHES]

April 22: Galle v Colombo @ R Premadasa Stadium (d/n), Kandy v Dambulla @ Dambulla (d/n)

April 24: Colombo v Dambulla @ Dambulla (d/n), Kandy v Galle @ R Premadasa Stadium (d/n)

April 26: Colombo v Kandy @ R Premadasa Stadium (d/n)

April 27: Dambulla v Galle @ R Premadasa Stadium (d/n)

April 30: Final @ R Premadasa Stadium (d/n)