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Rumesh Ratnayake is best remembered for his fast bowling exploits on the cricket field and, as a more than useful lower order batsman. When an injury to his bowling arm restricted his international cricket career to just 23 Tests at the premature age of 28, he had taken 73 wickets and scored 433 runs. On two occasions he went over the half-century mark, once against England at Lord's in 1991 where he also took five wickets in an innings.

On Sunday morning, Ratnayake, 35, was asked to reproduce his former batting skills to rescue his club from dire straits. Chasing a Panadura SC total of 300, NCC had begun the day promisingly at 264 for 4, but soon found themselves having a fight on their hands to obtain the all important first innings points when Panadura reduced them to 295 for 8. Ratnayake having come to the middle at the fall of the sixth wicket decided that 'enough is enough' and unleashed some of his thunderous drives and pulls to fetch himself 42 runs off just 21 balls. Thirty-eight of those runs came in boundaries (3 sixes, 5 fours) and Panadura, thunderstruck by Hurricane Rumesh, eventually conceded a first innings lead of 61 runs.

It was the Ratnayake-Linden Hannibal liaison that swung the game in NCC's favour. The pair added a valuable 38 runs for the ninth wicket with Hannibal contributing 22. Thanks largely to Ratnayake, who is also the coach of NCC, the club were able to retain their top position in the Premier championship table for another weekend. They hold a marginal 3.810 points lead over nearest rivals Bloomfield, who have the identical playing record.

Ratnayake, was forced to play in the match because NCC were short of players and what an impression he created on his return to first-class competition after nearly six years. Apart from Ratnayake's heroics, NCC were given a good platform to commence their runs chase by skipper Sanjeeva Weerasinghe and Pradeep Hewage, who each made identical scores of 79.

Panadura built their total around opener Buddhika Perera's century (104) which comprised 10 fours and six sixes - three of which were hit off Ratnayake's leg-breaks. Panadura used the remaining time on the final day to tot up 271 for 8 of which Sunendra Kumara made 61 to follow his first innings 62.

Last season's runner-up Bloomfield kept in hot pursuit of the leaders when they moved into second spot following their four-wicket win over Singha SC. They owe a lot of their success to the right-arm leg-spinning talent of former Nalanda cricketer Priyankara Wickremasinghe. The first bowler this season to reach a half-century of wickets, Wickremasinghe continued to torment opposing batsmen with his crafty leg-breaks bowled at low trajectory, reminiscent of his former club coach and Sri Lanka leg-spinner Somachandra de Silva.

Wickremasinghe picked up eight wickets in the match, to send Singha crashing to defeat. Singha captain Saman Jayantha, was the only batsman to counter-attack Wickremasinghe and his colleague Bateesha de Silva's (4/33) spin, contributing top scores of 41 and 109 , both wasted efforts when the rest around him fared miserably. All-rounder Kumara Dharmasena celebrated his recall to the World Cup squad with a top score of 78 and following it up with three wickets in the second innings. Sanjaya Rodrigo also made a fifty.

Tamil Union made short work of wooden spoonists Matara SC when they secured an easy nine-wicket win in the match played at the Colts grounds, because the Sara Stadium was booked for a school 'Big Match'. Tamil Union will be at a similar disadvantage this weekend as well, having to use the St. Joseph's College grounds at Darley Road for their game against Kurunegala YCC.

The win pushed Tamil Union to third place behind NCC and Bloomfield and it was achieved with their fourth captain for the season wicket-keeper/batsman Indika Galagoda, who played with a broken finger. It was courageous of Galagoda to play in the match having injured the finger in previous weekend's match against Singha SC. He did not keep wickets (Sagara Kumara taking over the position), but made the decision to play as the club were scraping the barrel to find 11 players with captain Muthiah Muralitharan injured and, Upul Chandana and Niroshan Bandaratilake, on national duty in Lahore.

Matara didn't represent much opposition to Tamil Union whose total of 248 for 9 declared was more than sufficient to guarantee them full points. Mario Villavarayen came up with a good all-round performance scoring 40 useful runs and taking a match bag of seven wickets. N. Weeraman held the Tamil Union batting top scoring with 65.

Another former Sri Lanka fast-medium bowler Janak Gamage, more commonly known as J.C. Gamage performed the first hat-trick of the season to condemn one-time table leaders Moors SC to their fourth defeat of the season. Moors were extremely lucky to escape with only a first innings loss. They were reduced to 89 for 9 in their second innings after being asked to chase 469 runs off 30 overs.

Galle CC made only 166 in their first innings (Dhammika Sudarshana 61), but Moors' batting without the experienced captain Chandika Hathurusingha (on national duty) crumbled to Gamage to be dismissed for 104. The tall lanky 34-year-old fast bowler from Matara, who won four one-day international caps for his country on tours to New Zealand and Sharjah in 1995, was not aware he had performed the hat-trick until later. He took a wicket off the last ball of his third over (Heshan Tillekeratne caught), and followed it up with two more (Janaka Nishantha caught, and Sampath Perera lbw) off the first two balls of his fourth over. It was the second occasion that Gamage had performed the hat-trick, having done so for CCC v Police SC in 1989.

With a first innings lead of 62, Galle CC piled on the runs in the second innings through fifties from Ruwin Peiris and C.K. Hewamanne to set Moors the formidable task. Left-arm spinner Gamini Perera (5/18 off 13 overs) and Charinda Fernando (3/31) nearly brought off an outright win for Galle with their tight bowling.

Sebastianites slid to sixth position when their batting collapsed to a near full strength Colts side led by Sri Lanka spearhead Chaminda Vaas. Playing his first Premier championship match of the season, Vaas distinguished himself by taking five wickets in the Sebastianites' second innings. The home team's first innings was destroyed by left-armer Dinuka Hettiaratchi, who took 5/52. It was bad batting more than anything else that contributed to Sebastianites' poor first innings total of 148, after being 75 without loss at lunch. Centuries by Chaminda Mendis (112) and Duleep Samaraweera (156) who together added 205 for the first wicket, gave Colts a formidable first innings lead of 197. Although Sebastianites made an impressive second innings reply - 286, mainly through half-centuries from Sanjeeva Silva (91), Ranga Yasalal and Nimesh Perera, Colts were left with only 90 runs to score off 13 overs. They achieved the target using up 11.3 overs.

Defending champions SSC missed out on valuable points against lowly placed Police when they failed to force an outright win. A staunch ninth wicket partnership of 73 off 72 balls between S. Wijeratne (43) and D. Gunawardana (50 n.o.) kept SSC at bay when they pressed for full points. Police had lost eight wickets for 160 and had an overall lead of only 85 when the pair came together to frustrate SSC's attempt. Police finally finished on 233 all out, leaving SSC with the task of scoring 158 in the mandatory overs. They eventually made 46 for 5. SSC's first innings total of 327 was made up by half-centuries from Shantha Kalavitigoda, Tilan Samaraweera and Ruwan Galappathy. Harith Jayasuriya (4/48) and Dilhara Fernando (5/85) took the bowling honours for SSC, and for Police, Vajira Ranaweera had a match bag of eight wickets.

CCC were another club who failed to grab maximum points when they met Kurunegala YCC - fourth from the bottom of the table. Having scraped through narrowly by 11 runs on the first innings, CCC set Kurunegala YCC 255 for victory off 46 overs. But despite the efforts of fast bowler Indika Gallage (match bag of seven wickets) and Nalliah Rajan (4/9), Kurunegala held on to force a draw at 167/7. Damith Hunukumbura and Michael van Dort made centuries for CCC in the second innings. Wasantha Kumara destroyed the CCC batting in the first innings for 174 capturing 6 for 71, but could not repeat the performance as Hunukumbura and van Dort took control.

BRC one of the few clubs struggling to finish within the first 12 of the final standings to avoid relegation, came out on top of their clash with Antonian SC to take full points. Skipper Deepal Madurapperuma set the tone taking 6/24 to rout Antonians for 126 giving BRC a first innings lead of 51, which they stretched to 289. Antonians made a bold reply scoring 257, to lose by 32 runs. Madurapperuma took a further three wickets bowling in tandem with Duminda Perera, who finished with four.

Premier Championship Standings

At the completion of the tenth weekend of matches on 7 March

                                   Bonus Points
                P     WOR   W1st  LOR   L1st  ND   Btng    Bwlg  Pts
		   	  	      	     	 		 
Points                12    8                      .005    0.1	 
		   	  	      	     	 		 
NCC             10    3     4     1     1     1    19.890  16.3  104.190
Bloomfield      10    3     4     1     1     1    16.480  15.9  100.380
Tamil Union     10    4     2     0     3     1    16.015  15.1  95.115
Moors SC        10    3     3     0     4     0    17.760  15.7  93.460
SSC             10    0     7     1     2     0    18.730  16.4  91.130
Sebastianites   10    2     4     1     2     1    18.970  12.4  87.370
CCC             10    1     5     1     2     1    16.115  16.8  84.915
Colts           10    3     2     0     4     1    15.960  16.1  84.060
Panadura SC     10    2     3     1     3     1    21.260  13.2  82.460
Singha SC       10    0     5     1     3     1    16.720  11.6  68.320
Galle CC        10    1     3     1     4     1    16.250  13.5  65.750
BRC             10    2     1     5     2     0    16.355  14.8  63.155
Kurunegala YCC  10    1     3     2     3     1    14.240  12.6  62.840
Antonian SC     10    1     0     4     4     1    16.990  12.8  41.790
Police SC       9     0     1     2     5     1    13.415  9.6   31.015
Matara SC       9     0     0     4     4     1    10.980  10.2  21.180

(Subject to confirmation)

Note: The match between Police SC and Matara SC scheduled from Jan. 22-24 was not played.

HIGHEST INDIVIDUAL INNINGS: 217 (n.o.) - Mahela Jayawardene, SSC v Colts at Maitland Place on Feb. 13.

FASTEST CENTURY: 66 balls - Saman Jayantha, Singha SC v Panadura SC at Panadura on Jan. 31.

BEST INNINGS ANALYSIS: 8/47 - Priyankara Wickremasinghe, Bloomfield v Moors SC at Reid Avenue on Jan. 30.

BEST MATCH ANALYSIS: 11/90 - Ruwan Kalpage, NCC v BRC at Colts grounds, Havelock Park on Feb. 14.

HIGHEST INNINGS TOTAL: 485/4 decl. - Sebastianites v Antonian SC at De Soysa Stadium on Feb. 6.

LOWEST INNINGS TOTAL: 81 - Antonian SC v Colts at Havelock Park on Feb. 21.