By Suchintha Maddumaarachchi
It was rather a chilly Sunday morning in the mid of October
when we, the students came out of the houses with sleepy eyes (with the
exception of our captain Waruna, who was too excited about the match to even
sleep the night before) to go play this much awaited ASLID annual cricket
match. The team consisted of 6 players, namely Waruna, Eshan, Suchintha,
Dinesh, Athula and Piyumal. The students team participating in the match for
the past few years have been rather dormant with their performance which easily
made us the underdogs in the match among the other qualified and experienced
cricket players from the Gurgaon, Noida, Faridabad and the High commission
teams.
With the arrival of the High Commissioner of Sri Lanka to
India H.E Mr. Prasad Kariyawasam, at the DPS RK puram grounds, the organizers set
out to select the 2 teams which would face the first match of the day by
calling random numbers as they were chosen by the team captains. The students
team was up to play in the first match with the High Commission team led by Mr.
Niroshana Gallage. With high expectations of winning at least one match in the
series, we set out to the field to give it our best shot. As we won the toss,
we elected to field first giving the High Commission team to slam a good score.
Opening the batting for the team, the high commissioner himself joined in to
play some good old fashioned soft ball cricket. The high commission team, at
the end of the innings of 5 overs, gave an impressive performance of 40 runs
for no wickets leaving us with a considerable target to chase. Opening the
batting lineup for the students team were our very own captain Waruna and
Athula. Sadly Waruna, after a very impressive sixer in his maiden ball, was bowled out by the High
commission bowler while facing his second ball. However, with one wicket down,
the students team, in the middle of the 5th over, were able to win the
match with Suchintha and Athula holding the ground with an impressive
performance.
With the victory in the first match, the students team automatically
advanced to the semi finals after another round of random number calling where
the Gurgaon team which came forward after defeating the Noida Faridabad team,
got an exemption heading them straight to the finals while the students team
had to face the High commission team again for the second time in the day. High
commission team also arrived in the semi finals as a result of defeating the
Noida Faridabad team. So with high hopes of somehow making it to the finals, we
again set out to the field to give it our best shot. With luck coming all our
way starting with the toss itself, the captain chose to field first. Later on
we were able to bowl out the high commission team for 33 due to the exceptional
fielding performance by Eshan (as a wicket keeper) Piyumal and Athula taking 4 wickets as run outs
and one catch. At a small target to chase, the students team easily won the
match at 3.5 overs at the loss of 1 wicket.
Moving into the finals with the Gurgaon team, we were
overwhelmingly joyed as well as tired and unable to even move after eating the
delicious Sri Lankan food that were made by the Sri Lankan families who came to
see the match. With our love for Sri Lankan food and missing it for such a long
time, it easily surpassed any other motive we had and we made sure we ate as
much as we could. Speaking of the Gurgaon team led by Saminda, they have been
champions as well as finalists in the ASLID cricket tournament for many years
in the past and had one of the most experienced collection of team members
ever. Especially their golden boy Saminda, who is more of less of a local
master blaster.
Starting off with the finals students team elected to field
first after winning the toss. The opening partnership of the Gurgaon team was
broken in the first ball itself when an excellent delivery by Athula, bowled
out the opening batsman Saminda. However, later on picking up the pace, the
batsmen of the Gurgaon team gave us the chills. At the end of the innings, they
gave us a whopping target of 72 to chase. With the hope of giving it our very
best, we sent our best batsmen Dinesh and Athula to open the match for us and
they didn’t disappoint us. Dinesh and Athula were hitting fours and sixers like
it was a fiesta! They ended up recording the highest opening partnership in
ASLID cricket history and winning the match for us at 76 runs in the opening
partnership. To everyone’s surprise and in the first time in 7 years, the
students team recorded a victory in the tournament thus, becoming the champions
of the ASLID cricket cup 2013. Also to add to the joy, Medhavini who is also a
fellow student and played for women’s team number 1, contributed to their
victory in the tournament in the female category.
It was indeed an overwhelmingly satisfying day for all of us
as we the underdogs proved ourselves worth and showed what we are capable of
achieving. Thus, with the hopes of lifting up the trophy again next year with
the high moral boost, we all set back home to meet and greet our old lives
filled with education. However, the memories of winning a trophy, spending some
good quality time with our fellow Sri Lankans in Delhi who are just the most
amazing bunch of people you can ever meet, will never be forgotten. It was just
like we were back in Sri Lanka playing a cricket match with all the music, the
laughter, the food, the people, the hospitality and that wave of excitement in
the air like there’s never a tomorrow.
