Pulindu pilots Sri Lanka Under-19 to victory

Opener Pulindu Perera the outstanding player from Dharmaraja College Kandy scored a 156 on 96 balls with 17 fours and 6 sixes as Sri Lanka Under19 outplayed Pakistan Under19 to clinch a 58-run win in the first Youth ODI of the five-match series played at Karachi on Sunday.

Sri Lanka scored 309 all out in 49.4 overs while Pakistan manged to get 251 all out in 45.4 overs. Pulindu was leading the way to notch up this win to take 1-0 lead at this five match series. Having lost the one and only 4 day game earlier Sri Lanka came back strongly to win the game and it was tremendous achievement from Sri Lanka, said Sri Lanka under 19 team bowling coach Chamila Gamage. We batted extremely well to make huge total and our bowlers were able to restrict them.

Having won the toss, the hosts opted to field first and managed to strike early dismissing the visiting skipper Sineth Jayawardene for a duck and Jayawardene was not among the runs in last West Indies under 19 series.

However opener Pulindu Perera revived Sri Lanka’s innings building a 136-run stand with Ravishan de Silva for the 2nd wicket and that was the turning point of the game. Perera made a blistering century as Sri Lanka posted 309 runs and he was the match winner.

Sri Lanka also came up with a disciplined bowling effort to restrict the hosts to 251. Shamyl Hossain (98) and Arafat Minhas (84) fought hard for Pakistan with fine half-centuries but that was not enough to win the game. Dinura Kalupahana was the stand out performer with the ball for the visitors as he picked up 4 wickets for 32 runs. Garuka Sanketh also impressed with the ball taking 3 wickets for 42 runs.

The second Youth ODI will be played today at the same venue.

Chief Scores

Sri Lanka U19 – 309 (49.4) Pulindu Perera 156, Ravishan de Silva 30, Vishen Halambage 25, Sharujan Shanmuganathan 24*, Naveed Ahmed 3/52, Mohammed Ibtisam 2/41, Ahmed Hussain 2/52, Arafat Minhas 2/61

Pakistan U19 – 251 (45.4) Shamyl Hussain 98, Arafat Minhas 84, Dinura Kalupahana 4/32, Garuka Sanketh 3/42, Ruvishan Perera 2/51

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