England Men U19s will head to Cheltenham for a series decider after the first Men’s Youth Test against Sri Lanka U19s ended in a rain-affected draw.
Any hopes of a result had been dulled when the second day was completely washed out, after which the tourists controlled the contest to earn a deserved 77-run first-innings lead. Sri Lanka U19s then batted out the remainder of the match to be 192 for four when stumps was called.
Skipper Dinura Kalupahana’s century yesterday was followed by Praveen Maneesha’s six for 56 as the leg-spinner claimed five of the six Young Lions wickets to fall on the final day.
England U19s were bowled out for 247 but will take positives ahead of next week’s second Youth Test in the form of Freddie McCann’s 92 at the top of the order while Lancashire’s Keshana Fonseka also fell just short of a century when he was caught driving at Sheshane Marasinghe on 86. The pair had put on 160 for the second wicket yesterday.
Surrey Academy paceman Alex French picked up four wickets in the first innings too – when England U19s had reduced Sri Lanka U19s to 37 for four – but they were unable to assert that early authority as Kalupahana’s classy century shifted the momentum.
Three late wickets last night meant the Young Lions started the day needing to reassert themselves, but instead they lost 54 for six with Maneesha’s skiddy leg-spin doing the majority of the damage.
Rocky Flintoff added one to his overnight score when has was caught by Nathan Caldera before Maneesha had Jack Carney trapped lbw pushing forward.
Fonseka had been untroubled as he struck 13 boundaries in his 149-ball stay but, like a number of batters yesterday on a slowing pitch, pushed a drive into the infield and was caught by Sadew Samarasinghe.
Maneesha mopped up the remaining three wickets in back-to-back overs to give Sri Lanka a first-innings lead they would barely have imagined earing after their first-morning collapse.
From there the match meandered towards a draw. Farhan Ahmed picked up his first wicket of the match when he snuck one past Samarsinghe’s forward prod. In the next over Noah Thain held a sharp catch above his head at first slip when Pulindu Perera swiped at Jaydn Denly’s second ball.
Shanmuganthan was composed in reaching 73 before swiping at Denly and being caught in the deep by Ahmed, who also held the catch to remove Gayana Weerasinghe off Daavya Sharma.
England Men U19s captain, Hamza Shaikh, said: “We have a young side and we had a lot of debutants so there were a few nerves kicking about but as a team we bowled really well on a flat pitch and up top and that partnership between Freddie and Kesh was unbelievable.
“It’s a shame we couldn’t back up from where we were on the first day, but we are a young team and we’ll take a lot of learnings away from this match. On a pitch like that you have to be patient with your bowling and with the bat you have to be prepared to put together big partnerships.
“They showed they are a very good team and we know against them we have to show up and have our minds on the job if we want to do well in the second Test. We are a team that wants to look at how we can be positive and win the game so we’ll go to Cheltenham and see what we can do.”