Brittle B-Love batting bowled over

It’s still early days in this season’s Lanka Premier League but B-Love Kandy may already be sweating about their chances in the tournament after a second successive defeat exposed their brittle batting, in a 83-run loss to the Galle Titans at the R. Premadasa Stadium on Tuesday. 

A 181-run target was always going to be hard to chase on a difficult batting surface, but whatever hope Kandy might have had quicky disappeared after they found themselves on 36 for 5 by the end of the Powerplay, as B-Love struggled to stitch together anything resembling a match-winning partnership. 

From there it was an exercise of patience for everyone involved as the Kandy innings meandered for 11 more overs before being bowled out for 97.

Earlier, New Zealander Tim Seifert, like Avishka Fernando had earlier in the day, played through the conditions to score a rapid half-century, the Titans by extension exploding for 117 runs in the last 10 overs of their innings. 

It was a complete contrast to the position the Titans found themselves at the midway point of their innings on 63 for 3, but the second-half charge spearheaded by a 95-run partnership between Seifert and Shakib Al Hasan propelled Galle to an above-par total of 180 for 5.

Chief scores: 
Galle Titans 180 for 5 (Tim Seifert 74, Mohammad Hasnain 1 for 26)
B-Love Kandy 97 (Ashen Bandara 27, Kasun Rajitha 2 for 8, Richard Ngarava 2 for 15, Tabraiz Shamsi 2 for 20, Shakib Al Hasan 2 for 10)