109th “Battle of the North”: St. Johns College wins by 84 runs
St. Johns College Jaffna beat Central College Jaffna by 84 runs in the 109th ‘Battle of the North’ at the Jaffna Central College grounds today.
Batting first St. Johns College Batsmen showed very good sprit and scored 300 runs for 7 wickets in 87.5 overs, and declared their innings on the first day. In replying, Jaffna Central College lost all its wickets quickly and only scored 164 runs in 80.4 overs.
In their second innings, St. John’s College scored 136 runs for 7 wickets in 30.5 overs and declared the innings soon after game started on the final day today.
Central College failed with the bat again in the second innings scoring just 188 runs losing all wickets in 86.1 overs.
Jeni Flemin (St. John’s College) won Best Batsman, Antonypillai Kishjanthan ( St. John’s College) Best Bowler, Sriskantharajah Kowthaman ( Jaffna Central College) Best Fielder, Sathakaran Thiresan ( Jaffna Central College) Best All-rounder, Sajeenthiran Kapilraj (St. John’s College) Best Wicketkeeper, Jeni Flemin (St. John’s College) Man of the Match.
The Battle of North is the oldest playing Big Match in the Northern Sri Lanka and according to records available from the 109 matches that have been played so far St. John’s College is leading the series with 35 wins as against 27 by Jaffna Central College with 39 drawn and one abandoned while results of 7 matches are not available. Last year St. John’s was on the verge of winning the encounter, but the officials of the two schools were forced to call off the match due to crowd invasion. However, the St. John’s College were declared winners, which resulted after a discussion between the officials of the two schools.
