Royal College pulled off a stunning one wicket win over arch rivals S. Thomas’ College in their 44th limited overs match at the SSC ground in Colombo yesterday.
Royal looked down and out needing 21 more runs to win with the last pair at the crease while chasing a target of 256.
But Lahiru Madushanka hammered three towering successive sixes off the 48th over bowled by Thomian paceman Kalana Perera to turn the match in Royal’s favour.
With three more runs to get Madushanka dug out a ball and played it to mid wicket for two runs and dispatched the next ball from Kalana Perera to the cover boundary to bring up the winning runs much to the jubilation of the Royal team supporters.
Earlier half centuries by Ahan Wickremasinghe and Kamil Mishara who made 67 and 68 respectively kept Royal in the hunt after opener Kavinda Madarasinghe set the course with 51. The Thomians batting first did not have much of a free hand in the match as they reached 255 for 6 in the allotted 50 overs with Kalana Perera doing some lusty hitting in the dying stages of the innings to make an unbeaten 37 with two sixes. Sithara Hapuhinna (51) and Ryan Fernando (51) held the innings together after the Thomians got off to a shock start while losing the wicket of Shalin de Mel for 11. After their departure it was left to middle order batsman Umanga Suwaris to do the honours with the bat and he obliged by making a top score of 81with eight fours before he was run-out.
For Royal it was some kind of a consolation win after losing the traditional big match to the Thomians last week.
