Kandy Royals had to bear the brunt of a heavy defeat against Jaffna Kings after the side’s lacklustre show in Dambulla. Taking nothing away from Kings’ brilliance, Royals had only themselves to blame as they lost their third of five games this season.
Uninspiring Kandy
Pakistan pacer Shaheen Shah Afridi was the only player to turn up with both the ball and the bat. With his side, Kandy Royals, bowling first, Shaheen started off with a brilliant opening spell, where he conceded only 11 runs in two overs. For context, the rest of Royals’ bowlers conceded 53 runs in the remaining four powerplay overs.
The onslaught did not stop, with the first wicket falling in the 13th over at 129. Dushan Hemantha, the only bowler besides Shaheen to get a wicket, got rid of Avishka Fernando, who could not properly time a shot and got caught at long-off.
Shaheen’s brilliant death bowling
Shaheen’s death-bowling spell turned out to be better than his initial two. He managed to remove the set batter Kamil Mishara, who had scored 78 off 53 by then, in his first over back into the attack.
He followed it up by dismissing captain Bhanuka Rajapaksa. The quick fall of wickets helped choke the run flow, though the damage seemed to have already been done. Shaheen would return to take another wicket, but a 200-run target was still seemed too daunting for Kandy to chase.
The chase was made even harder as Royals batters failed to keep up with the asking rate. Barring Lahiru Udara and Shaheen, no other player could get into double figures. One hundred and six was all Kandy could muster, losing the game by a staggering 93 runs.
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