Wins for Everest and Sri Lanka Lions in Cyprus cricket leagues

By Richard Boxall

The weekend’s cricket featured another 40-over win for Everest and a big win for the Lions in the Sri Lankan ‘derby’ match.

Everest CC is the only club that has decided to play only in the 40 Over league and not the T20, and so far this has reaped dividends with victories in their first two games.

On Saturday they bowled Black Caps out for 181, with Arjun taking 3-42. At one stage they had reduced the Caps to 108-7 before a late-order revival by Pintu (42) and Jaman (37). Then Everest themselves slipped to 31-4, with 3 wickets for Mangala, before Shyam steadied the ship with 75 and Everest got home by three wickets.

The big game in the T20 league on Sunday was the meeting of Sri Lankan CC from Nicosia with the Limassol Sri Lanka Lions. The Nicosia-based team made 165-8 with Chandana scoring 52 and Randunu 46 not out.

Lions set off quickly in reply with Nalin making 23 before falling to a superb caught-and-bowled by Supan, but Akila survived two early dropped catches to score a rapid 88, combining with Sadun (34 not out) in a vital third wicket partnership of 109. The Lions reached their victory target in just 13 overs with 6 wickets in hand.

Telugu 11 continued their good start to the season with a 6-wicket win over a much-changed Nicosia Tigers team. Roman survived a testing opening spell by Charan and Rajasekhar to score 40 but there were no other major scores as Tigers made 135-6.

Telugu made quick inroads into their target with a century opening partnership, full of frenetic running as well as some good shots, between Srinivas (58) and Vinod (25). Tigers’ new bowler Noyon bowled an excellent 3 over spell, taking 3 wickets for just 6 runs, but Telugu were able to reach victory with 4 overs left.

In group C both Lankan SC and Punjabi Kings kept up their winning starts to the season. The Lankans got off to a great start with an 80-run partnership between Suresh (50) and Tharanga (44), followed by unbeaten innings of 64 in 30 balls by Ashanka and 25 by Sujith, giving them an impressive total of 206-3.

Black Caps in reply started well, reaching 92-1 thanks to Sandhu (40) and Brar (44). But Lankan bowlers Roshan (3-21) and Saman (3-25) turned the tide, and the Caps fell short on 165 all out.

Punjabi Kings’ wicketkeeper Karan led the way with an unbeaten 48 as they reached 147-8 against Limassol Moufflons, for whom Manish took 3-21. The Moufflons reply was a rather tame 117-9. Kings’ Ravi Gill followed his