Day 8 - Thriller in Colombo

Hari Badale, First XI cricket captain, reports on a nail-bitingly close game of cricket which went down to the last ball:

"Underneath the raging heat of the Sri Lankan sun we arrived at the renowned St Thomas' School, Colombo to play our two t20s against whatever the school famous for their national cricket success and leading academics had to offer. After winning the toss (that's 3 out of 3 for me) we elected to bat, and with the air thick and heavy, Luke Ginty and Alex Pigott strode out to hopefully occupy the crease for twenty overs... It wasn't to be: Ginty fell early and although Pigott delivered a powerful start to the innings, regular wickets fell, stunting our scoring rate and building pressure. Kelvin 'Killer' Brenner's outrageous knock of 26 lifted the spirits, accompanied by a solid finish from the latter batsmen which took us up to 111-7 after the 20 overs. The sense of 'wow, we can actually win this' was ever present among the team, and as the rolling waves crashed against the the rocks adjacent to the pitch and the furious trains roared past, we marched out onto the field to begin the defence.

Harjeet Ahulwalia's dangerous lines and Pete McClaughlan's deadly flight pushed the opposition immediately onto the back foot, and through clinical run-outs (including two direct hits from distance), we were dominating. But loose deliveries and small errors gave St Thomas' a sniff at victory, to which they pounced upon: needing 40 off 30 balls, smart batting and misfields proved too costly, along with confusion about how many was needed to win in the last over, (poor scoreboard management). Yet, we kept up by the pressure by consistently taking wickets (9 in total), including two in the last over from Louis Pieris, for whom the day was particularly special as his Uncle and other relatives had great cricketing success at St. Thomas in days gone by. The cruel sport took us to the last ball, which was an inside edge for four runs. Ultimately, as captain, I feel we played the better cricket and had it not been for tentative batting from a number of our key batsman, combined with small fielding blunders, the game would have been very different (in our favour if that wasn't clear). An enthralling game from which we learnt a lot, and are now hoping to bounce back from."

In the second Twenty20 match, Latymer posted an imposing 138-6. Tom Carson scored a useful 21, and James Murdoch cameoed with a useful 12 runs late in the innings, but it was Cameron Sell who was the backbone of this display, scoring a skilful 53 not-out from 44 deliveries. Despite this imposing total, Latymer's bowling was profligate, and our fielding dipped in the heat. We took six wickets, but St Thomas reached the target with just over two overs to spare.

     

      

     

Editor's note: day 7 was largely a day of travel. After a final morning dip in the river's roaring rapids, we left behind the rainforest and headed for the Galadari hotel in Colombo, where we are 50 yards from the Indian Ocean, and next door to Sri Lanka's impressive former Parliament building.