ACS Overseas First-Class Annual 2016

Sri Lanka in 2015/16 This was an up-and-down period for Sri Lanka’s Test side, as they entered a new era following the retirements of Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara. The period was bookended with fine home series wins against West Indies and - more unexpectedly, but no less comprehensively - Australia, who at the time were top of the ICC rankings but whom Sri Lanka defeated three times out of three, with 106 runs the smallest margin of victory. But in between were comprehensive away series defeats in New Zealand and England. Like so many these days, Sri Lanka seemed a very different side when away from their home soil and in unfamiliar climatic conditions. The outcome was only a small change in their position in the ICC rankings, from seventh a year ago to sixth at the end of the 2016 season - but only a single ranking point behind fifth-placed South Africa. For their successes, Sri Lanka owed a considerable debt to Dinesh Chandimal, who hit three centuries in contrasting styles besides keeping wicket in many games: one of four potential keepers in their Test eleven, along with Kusal Perera and Kaushal Silva (both of whom have been the selected keeper for some Tests) and Kusal Mendis, a regular keeper at first-class level. But above all their success was due to the efforts of veteran slow left-armer Rangana Herath. During 2016 he retired from the shorter forms of the game to concentrate on Test cricket, and to good effect: he took 54 wickets in Sri Lanka’s ten Tests of 2015/16 and 2016, including 28 at an average of just 12.75 in the three matches against Australia. Only one domestic tournament was held in the 2015/16 season. A second, zonal, tournament had been planned for March and April but was abruptly cancelled in mid-February, when Sri Lanka Cricket announced that they were unhappy with its proposed composition and structure. Reports said that the zonal tournament had sought to cluster clubs in five regional hubs, but a new SLC board considered this to be “impractical”. The board nevertheless affirmed their commitment to regional cricket within the island, and later in the year they added to this support by announcing plans for two new stadia in the previously war-torn (and cricket-starved) north of the country, at Jaffna and at Polonnaruwa. So the AIA Premier League was the only domestic first-class tournament played in Sri Lanka in 2015/16. Its format was unchanged, with 14 teams playing initially in two groups before the top four teams from each group separated to play a Super Eight competition to decide the overall winners, while the bottom three from each group played an equivalent Plate competition. All matches were scheduled for three days only, apart from the Super Eight games which were played over four days. The tournament winners - national champions for the first time at first-class level, and indeed for the first time since 1950/51 - were Tamil Union Cricket and Athletic Club. For a long time it looked as though the honour might go to newly-promoted Galle CC, who won their pool in the initial phase of the competition and then won their first two matches in the Super Eight phase. Tamil Union, meanwhile, had also won their pool, but their relatively low number of points won against the other leading sides meant that they entered the Super Eights competition in seventh place. But they then came with a rush, winning all four of their Super Eight matches to head the final table, while Galle failed to win either of their last two games and fell away to finish fourth. Among the highlights of the season was an innings of 342 by M.B.Ranasinghe – yet another wicket-keeper – for Sinhalese SC, as they ran up 584-2 declared against Badureliya. His innings was the highest ever recorded in first-class cricket by a player who also kept wicket in the same match; during it he shared in partnerships of 279 and 305. Less content with his lot might have been Tamil Union’s Maduka Liyanapathiranage, who took his side’s first nine wickets in the first innings against Chilaw Marians, only to have the chance of all-ten taken from him when the Marians’ number 11 was run out - and by a substitute fielder at that. Ranasinghe was one of three batsmen to pass 900 runs in the season, but none made it to four figures. The highest aggregate was 953 (average 79.41) by Tharanga Paranavitana of Tamil Union, with Dimuth Karunaratne (SSC and Sri Lanka) on 935 and Ranasinghe on 901. Two 433