Last season’s runners up took revenge for their final’s loss of the last year with a victory in the inaugural game of the Lankan Premier League. Galle Gladiators defeated defending champions Jaffna Kings by a huge margin of 54 runs to get the ball rolling in Sri Lanka’s premier domestic T20 tournament.
Samit Patel, the English import was the hero of the game for the Gladiators scoring crucial 43 runs and picking up three wickets to break the back of the Kings’ chase at the very start of it. Chasing 165, the Kings had a decent start, making 28 in the first three overs.
However, once they were jolted by Mohammad Hafeez who picked up Upul Tharanga for a score of 17, the road to 165 kept on becoming difficult with each passing ball. After Tharanga, Afghan import of the Kings, Rahmanullah Gurbaz was dismissed with the team score at 39. Avishka Fernando and Tom Kohler-Cadmore followed suit and the Kings were 52-4 in 9th over, all of a sudden.
Skipper Thisara Perera tried hard to put up a rescue act with Sammu Ashan. But Lahiru Madushanka had other ideas as he removed him with the last ball of his first and only over in the game. Wanindu Hasaranga couldn’t even open his account and became Afghani Noor Ahmad’s first scalp. In the end, Wahab Riaz and Suranga Lakmal hit a few lusty blows to get Kings past the 100 run mark, but it was never going to be enough.
Pulina Tharanga removed both of them with his leg-spin in the 18th over and then Nuwan Thushara came back to get the last wicket of Maheesh Theekshana, thereby bowling out Kings for 110 and winning the game for his team 54 runs.