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Danushka Gunathilaka scored a fluent 45 for Galle Gladiators at the top of the order
Samit Patel of Galle Gladiators made inroads into the Kandy Warriors batting with three wickets
By Sa’adi Thawfeeq
In a match that went to the wire, Galle Gladiators held their nerve to pull off a nail-biting four-wicket win with four balls to spare over Kandy Warriors in the second double-header game of the Lanka Premier League played at the R. Premadasa Stadium on Tuesday.
Kandy without a win so far fought hard in a match of fluctuating fortunes but were just not good enough losing crucial phases of the match to finally succumb to defeat.
Kandy had their chances of wrapping up the match in their favour, but they dropped a crucial catch in the 18th over with Galle requiring 26 off 15 balls when Lahiru Madushanka at three was put down at deep midwicket by Tillakaratne Sampath off Rovman Powell playing in his 100th T20 match.
That proved to be a crucial miss because Madushanka made full use of the lapse to take Galle over the line in the company of Player of the Match Dhananjaya Lakshan (10* and 2/11). Madushanka (22*) released the pressure in the Galle camp by hitting Kamindu Mendis for a six and then following it up with six and a four off the final over bowled by Kandy captain Angelo Perera, to seal the match in Galle’s favour.
Danushka Gunathilaka top scored for Galle at the top of the order with a fluent 45 off 33 balls, but Kandy came back strongly through leg-spinner Sachindu Colombage (3/20) to reduce the opposition to 118-6 before Madushanka and Lakshan came to their rescue.
Kandy who won the toss and batted first knew that their score of 143-6 was subpar on a wicket which the Galle spinners exploited to the full. Kandy got off to a poor start losing Kennar Lewis to the second ball and Charith Asalanka for six to be 16-2 in the fourth over. Ahmed Shehzad (56 off 51 balls) and Kamindu Mendis (32 off 25 balls) put them back on course with a stand of 83 for the third wicket. But following the dismissal of Mendis in the 13th over, the runs simply started to dry out with the spinners – Samit Patel (3/13) and Noor Ahmed (1/21) getting into the act gaining a lot of purchase from the wicket. The Kandy innings fell apart to spin as they lost four wickets for 19 runs but Tillakaratne Sampath (19*) and Ishan Jayaratne (9*) gave the innings some respectability with an unbroken partnership of 25 off 14 balls.
Scores:
Kandy Warriors 143-6 (20) (Ahmed Shehzad 56, Kamindu Mendis 32, Samit Patel 3/13, Dhananjaya Lakshan 2/11)
Galle Gladiators 147-6 (19.2) (Danushka Gunathilaka 45, Bhanuka Rajapaksa 22, Lahiru Madushanka 22*, Sachindu Colombage 3/20)
