Angelo Mathews returned from an injury to lead Colombo Stars to a much-needed 41-run win over Galle Gladiators with a 57-ball 73.
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Angelo Mathews returned from an injury to lead Colombo Stars to a much-needed 41-run win over Galle Gladiators, with a 57-ball 73 in Lanka Premier League (LPL) 2021 match on Sunday at the R. Premadasa Stadium. After electing to bat first, Colombo Stars captain Mathews opened the innings and helped his team in posting a solid total of 162/7 in the rain-curtailed 18-over match. He hit 8 boundaries and 3 sixes in his innings. The Colombo Stars innings was also bolstered by Dinesh Chandimal who made 36 off 14, smashing 4 fours and 2 sixes in his innings. In reply, Galle Gladiators were bowled out for 121 in 16.5 overs with Stars pacer Naveen ul-Haq claiming 3 for 27, suffering their second successive defeat in two days.
Kusal Mendis scored 64 runs in 39 balls, with 7 fours and a six in the chase. But he found no support from the remainder of the Galle Gladiators’ batting order. Seekuge Prasanna, who took 2 for 23, and Ravi Rampaul, who picked 2 for 34, also contributed with the ball for Colombo Stars as they picked up only their second win of the season.
Ravi Bopara, who was adjudged the Player of the Match for playing a watchful innings of 34 runs from 39 balls, and helping his team Kandy Warriors defeat Galle Gladiators by 5 wickets in the Lanka Premier League on Saturday, expressed that the franchise tournament will definitely help Sri Lanka to find quality cricketers in their nation.
“I think the Lanka Premier League is definitely going to help Sri Lanka cricket. Whenever a league has been formed in any country, that league has helped that nation produce better cricketers, especially in the T20 format. Look at what happened to India, look at what happened to England, look at how good Pakistan were in the ICC T20 World Cup. I knew they were going to be good because they had such good quality. When you have leagues, you find players that would’ve never come into the system. You’ll see the impact of the Lanka Premier League in 3-4 years. We are already seeing talent coming through from Sri Lanka, players like Wanindu Hasaranga are good cricketers,” said Bopara.
When asked about his own performance in the LPL match against Galle Gladiators, Bopara said, “It was a difficult wicket to bat on. The key thing for us was to get to our target. We lost three games in a row before this game. My job was to make sure that I am there at the end. During the time-out, the Coach and the Captain told me not to play any big shots and asked me to be there till the end. So that was my job. If I was playing for my own ego then I would’ve scored at a faster rate, but I would have probably played a bad shot and got out and put the team in trouble. Once I got set, it was my job to take the team over the line.”
