Eastern Leopards Crowned Champions of inaugural Sri Lanka Indoor Cricket Nationals

The Eastern Leopards became the inaugural champions of Sri Lanka’s Indoor Cricket Nationals, after a 13-run win over the Elite Western Warriors in the final at U-Pro Colombo earlier this month.

The tournament featured six regional sides, spanning 18 matches across two weeks. Player performances across the tournament contributed towards the selection of the preliminary World Cup squads.

The Leopards qualified top after the single round-robin phase, winning four of their five matches, before defeating the Southern Sharks in the semi-final to book their ticket to the grand final. The Warriors had qualified third, with just two wins, but comprehensively defeated the Northern Knights in the other semi-final.

In the final, the Warriors were reduced to 56 in their innings, with the Leopards taking 12 wickets, including 4/-14 to Muditha Dissanayaka and 3/0 for Rusanda Gamage. In response, the Leopards appeared to be coasting with 45 runs in their first eight overs, before a brace of wickets to Chandima Lakshan, Kaushayla Thennakoon and Pesandu Weerasinghe in consecutive overs kept the Warriors back in contention. With seven runs needed in the final pair, Kaven Pathirana and Manasa Madubashana posted 24 to seal victory.  

The tournament was also played under the recently ratified WICF rules, which included the second-ball rule, where each second delivery must be scored off, if the previous ball is a dot ball.

Summary:

Fixtures, Ladders and Results

Participating Teams

• Eastern Leopards (Champions)

• Elite Western Warriors (Runners-up)

• Southern Sharks

• Northern Knights

• Central Kings

• North Western Vipers

Individual Awards

• Most Valuable Player: Tharusha Amarasinghe, Elite Western Warriors

• Best Batter: Rusanda Gamage, Eastern Leopards

• Best Bowler: Chandima Lakshan, Elite Western Warriors

• Emerging Player: Muditha Dissanayake, Eastern Leopards

Image: Sri Lanka Indoor Cricket