By Richard Boxall
Sri Lanka Lions won the inaugural Cyprus National Championships on Monday, with fairly comfortable victories over Moufflons and New Limassol Moufflons.
In the first game Moufflons beat their younger brothers the New Limassol Moufflons by 4 wickets, with the important contributions coming from Taranjit who scored 21 not out from 8 balls after taking two wickets for 4 runs. For the Limassol team Buddika took 3-13 from his 4 overs.
New Limassol Moufflons faced Sri Lanka Lions in their next match and were set a stiff target as the Lions made 166-7, a challenging total on the Happy Valley ground. Opener Tharanga led the way with 60 from 45 balls. Then Roshan took 3-13 for the Lions as the Limassol side were bowled out for 101.
In the final match the senior Moufflons team struggled against the left arm pace of Ravindu (5-32), until recovering to reach 128 all out due to some effective late-order striking by numbers 9 and 10 Hardeep and Lovedeep. Openers Akila (47 from 21 balls) and Tharanga (35) soon made inroads into this target, despite an excellent spell from Tiwari (3-6 from 4 overs), and the Lions, despite a brief interruption by the automatic water sprinklers, were comfortable winners by 6 wickets with 3 overs to spare, to become the first winners of this new competition.
While the potential national team players were working at a training camp with coach Richard Cox over the holiday weekend, there were also a few league matches. In the 40 Over competition Black Caps annihilated Kipro Tigers of Limassol by 250 runs. Five batters made sizeable contributions for the Caps, led by Chandana’s 69 and Mangala’s 56, before Manzoor took 5-20 to dismiss the Tigers for 66.
The matches in the T20 league were disrupted by the weather. Sunday’s game between Sri Lankans and Napa Kings at Ypsonas had to be cancelled, although the later game on the same ground was played, as Cyprus Knight Riders put in one of their best performances in scoring 175-9, with Rayhan making 62. For Nicosia Fighters Jony took 4-25 and Minhaj 4-35 but their batters were unable to make any impression and they were all out for 117, with Knight Riders captain Alamgir taking 3-24.
At Dhekeleia the teams waited patiently for the storm to pass before they could start, and Nicosia Tigers withstood some good opening bowling to progress to 172-3, with Roman making 50, Ashish 47 not out and Rasedul 31. In reply 1Rifles struggled to 103 all out. Ribeiro hit a lively 34 and for Tigers Masum picked up three late wickets for 8 runs.
On Monday, as the national championships were being played in sunshine at Happy Valley, just a few miles away at Ypsonas the T20 league match between Limassol Zalmi and Nicosia Fighters had to be abandoned due to a hailstorm, with the Fighters score standing at 142-3 (Anowar 42).
Next weekend will see some important games in both the T20 and 40 Over leagues as the group stage nears completion, with plenty of semi-final places still undecided. On Saturday unbeaten Markhor and Sri Lanka Lions clash at Ypsonas in the longer format, while on Sunday there are significant matches in the T20 between MSN Punjab Lions and Moufflons, between Al Fatah and Royal, and between Nicosia Tigers and Amdocs.
Contents of this article including associated images are belongs Cyprus Mail
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