‘Lagadi panauti Zimbabar ne’ – Fans react as Jaffna Kings beat Colombo Strikers by 21 runs in 1st match of Lanka Premier League 2023

The defending champions Jaffna Kings started their Lanka Premier League (LPL) 2023 campaign with a convincing victory over Colombo Strikers in the first match of the league on Sunday, July 30. Premadasa Stadium in Colombo. However, it would be interesting to see if Jaffna Kings continue their winning ways in the upcoming matches of the league or not.

Talking about the match, Colombo won the toss and opted to bowl first. They started well by dismissing both the Kings’ openers inside the powerplay. However, Kings’ middle-order batters displayed a brilliant batting performance, especially Towhid Hridoy who played an outstanding knock of 54 runs off 39 balls which included 4 fours and 1 six.

A few cameos from the lower-middle order batters helped the Kings to achieve a respectable total of 173 runs in the first innings. Chasing the target, Colombo suffered a huge setback as their star opener Babar Azam departed after scoring just 7 runs. The strikers kept losing wickets at regular intervals of time but Niroshan Dickwella kept the one end safe.

He smashed 58 runs off 34 balls which included 9 fours and 1 six, however, apart from him no other batters from the strikers were able to contribute anything special to the scoreboard. The Kings displayed a brilliant bowling performance throughout the 2nd innings. Vijayakanth Viyaskanth was the star with the ball for the Kings as he picked up 2 wickets and conceded only 17 runs in his 4 overs quota.

Really good start to the 4th edition: Thisara Perera (Jaffna Kings’ captain)

The magnificent bowling performance from the Jaffna Kings helped them to restrict Colombo to just 152 runs. Jaffna’s skipper Thisara Perera talked about the match in the post-match presentation and said that it is a really good start to the 4th edition for them.

“Really good start to the 4th edition. We did a great job. Very confident about my players. If someone is gone, I don’t worry about it, we build another team. David Miller and Nandre Burger have already arrived and they will be available for the next game.” Perera said in the post-match presentation.

Here’s how fans reacted: