South Africa win Red Bull Campus Cricket final

Northwest University (NWU) of South Africa kept their winning streak intact as they overpowered Sri Lanka's Business Management School (BMS) by seven wickets to emerge the winners of the Red Bull Campus World Cricket meet here on Saturday.

After winning the toss and putting BMS to bat, NWU's bowlers stood up to their reputation and bowled outs the hosts for 121 in 18.4 overs at the picturesque Galle International Cricket Stadium here.

Apart from M. Sarathchandra (24), D. Wikramanayake (21) and C. Karunarathne (29) no other top and middle order batsmen reached the two figure mark, thanks to some disciplined bowling from the South Africans.

The fielding was also good in this match and the visitors also exploited the conditions handsomely.

On the other hand, BMS batsmen failed to step up to the pressure and went back to the pavilion one by one.

In bowling, spinners did their job but lack of support from the pacers resulted in their loss.

Chasing 122, NWU's batsmen started on a steady note but BMS' ploy to bring spinners early worked as off-spinner K. Jayawickrama sent back opener Wihan Lubbe (2) in the second over of the game with scoreboard reading 10/1.

But J. Malan (64 not out) and M. Ackerman (23) forged a 48-run partnership before the latter was dismissed by another off-spinner G. Wimaladharma in the seventh over.

Wicketkeeper E. Lubbe (7) was also dismissed early Jayawickrama while trying to score quickely.

After 10 overs, the scoreboard was reading 73/3, new batsmen R. Haasbroek (20 not out) joined in-form J. Malan and the duo forged an unbeaten 50 run partnership and guided their team to the victory in the 15.2 overs.

Earlier, pacer J. Soutter and leg-spinner wrecked havoc in BMS batting line up as the duo shared six wickets between them to restrict the hosts to a low total.

(Gaurav Sharma can be contacted at gaurav.sharma@ians.in. He is currently in Galle, Sri Lanka at the invitation from Red Bull)

--IANS

gau/pur/vm