LPL 2021 | Dambulla, Colombo get off to winning starts as Ramesh Mendis, Dhananjaya de Silva shine

Ramesh Mendis continued his form from the Test series against West Indies as the off-spinner picked three crucial wickets against Kandy Warriors to restrict them to 170 and win the first match for his team Dambulla Giants by 20 runs. Apart from Menids, Phil Salt was as yet another hero for the Giants as he hit quickfire 64 off just 27 balls, striking at more than 200 to power his team to 190 while batting first in Colombo. 

The Warriors didn’t get off to a good start anyways as they lost their first three wickets at the score of only 28 and that too in the first four overs itself. Kamindu Mendis and Angelo Perera then tried to establish some semblance in the chase, but both were cleaned up by Ramesh Mendis in quick successions to leave Kandy reeling at 71-5 in the 10th over. 

Some late blows from Rovman Powell Ishan Jayaratne and Sachindu Colombage took the Warriors past the 150 mark and eventually to 170, but they never looked in the hunt after the fall of the first six wickets at 88. West Indian Powell top-scored with 42 off 21 balls. 

Colombo Stars get through tricky run chase

In another game in the league, the Colombo Stars were up against Galle Gladiators, the winner from the inaugural LPL 2021 encounter. However, the Gladiators didn’t even look like a shadow of what they were yesterday as they were restricted to only 116-8 in their 20 overs having won the toss and decided to bat first. 

Ben Dunk was the only batter that could stay at the crease for a long period of time as all big guns in Mohammad Hafeez, Samit Patel and Danushka Gunathilaka and skipper Bhanuka Rajapaksa failed big time. The two spinners from the Colombo side, Dhananjaya de Silva and Akila Dhananjaya were the trump cards as they picked among themselves four wickets and gave away only 37 runs in eight overs. 

As they say, chasing a small total can be a tough proposition and it turned out to be the same as Stars got stuck in the middle having lost their four out of the top five wickets for only 45 runs chasing 117. It was then that the experience of Dinesh Chandimal and de Silva counted as the two senior men in the team piled up a 27 runs partnership. 

Even as de Silva got out, David Weise’ quickfire 22 off 16 balls in a 31 runs stand with Chandimal made sure that the Stars were headed in the right direction for the win. The 32-year-old Chandimal stayed through to take his team home even as Weise got out with the team score at 103.