McLarens Group emerged the Runner-Up at the MCA "C" division 50-Over League Tournament when they lost to Pan Asia Bank 'A' in the final played at the Mercantile cricket Association Grounds in Colombo on the 13th of February.
McLarens who had an undefeated run throughout the season and reached the finals by beating Airport & Aviation in the Quarter Finals and defeating Standard Chartered Bank in the Semi-finals by a mammoth 130 runs, fell short of winning the finals by 2 wickets.
This achievement sees McLarens Holdings follow last year’s heroics after winning the MCA ‘D’ Division 40-Over League Title in 2015 defeating HSBC ‘A’ convincingly. The subsequent promotion to the ‘C’ division had no effect on McLarens who went undefeated throughout the tournament and to finally emerge Runner-Up in a closely fought final.
The finals played out at the MCA, saw McLarens bat first and score 257/8 in their allotted 50 overs (Mahel Jerome 80 in 117 balls, Sandaruwan Hettiarachchi 63 in 75 balls), Pan Asia Bank managed to score the 258 runs losing 8 wickets and finishing in 48.4 overs with Saman Fernando scoring 76 runs. The bowlers Tharindu Rukshan took 3/53 and Sachin Pieris 2/50.
The leading scorer of McLarens and the tournament Saminda Fernando who scored 382 runs won the “Best Batsman” award ably supported by Mahel Jerome at the top of the order with Sandaruwan Hettiarachchi’s fine form in the middle order.
From the bowling contributions, the “Best Bowler” of the tournament was Piyal Dissanayake who had taken 15 wickets throughout the season, helped by the pace of Sachin Pieris and steady contributions of Tharindu Rukshan, Asantha Solomon, Sandaruwan Hettiarachchi and Randika Fernando.
Losing skipper Tharindu Rukshan said that it brought him and the team pride in progressing so far in the tournament a year after winning the ‘D’ Division, and playing in the ‘C’ Division for the first time. He said that the team will try harder next season and emerge Champions. He thanked the McLarens management for their continuous support and backing throughout.
