(UTV | HAMBANTOTA) – Jaffna Stallions beat the Galle Gladiators in the second LPL match yesterday (28).
Gladiators captain Afridi who won the toss elected to bat and had to bail his team out when the innings was not going anywhere in the middle stages. Afridi with a typical aggressive half century in 22 balls gave his bowlers a fighting chance. Gladiators ended their innings on 175 for 8.
Avishka Fernando put any doubts to rest with an assured knock that took his team to victory with eight wickets to spare. He was 92 not out off 63 balls as they won with three balls to spare.
Man of the Match Avishka Fernando at the post match presentation: “During the Powerplay I couldn’t get any runs. I decided to hang around and play a long innings and that’s exactly what I did. It’s a great honor to bat with a player of that stature and [Shoaib Malik] was really helpful in the middle and we put a partnership to win the game. The wicket is a flat wicket, full of runs and I’m looking forward to playing more innings like this.”
Stallions captain Thisara Perera: “As a captain, I’m really happy with this performance. As a bowling unit, we have done pretty well. We have so many youngsters. Congratulations to Avishka. He has batted really well and hopefully he can do something really special this series.”
Gladiators captain Shahid Afridi: “From the end of the sixth over to the 14th over, we didn’t execute our plan batting. We didn’t bowl according to the plan and we didn’t execute. I was expecting more but it’s a good wakeup call. In T20 if you make less mistakes than the opposition, than you’ll win the game.”