After a short break of two days, the third edition of the Lanka Premier League resumes with Match no.15 between Dambulla Aura and Galle Gladiators on Saturday, December 17, 2022, at the R.Premadasa Stadium in Colombo. Both teams will be facing each other for the first time this season with their second meeting scheduled for Match no.20, two days later, December 19 at the same venue.
Nothing has gone right for Dambulla as they have had a disastrous start to this campaign. Dasun Shanaka-led Side has played five games so far and suffered defeats in all five of them. They have lost twice to Jaffna Kings and Colombo Stars while their one loss came against the Kandy Falcons. With this, they sit at the bottom most slot of points table with a dreadful net run rate of -2.583.
On the other hand, the Galle Gladiators have also played five matches and won just two. They came second-best on three occasions and occupy the fourth position in the table with four points and an NRR of -0.323. They lost their opening two encounters with Jaffna and Kandy before claiming back-to-back victories against Colombo and Kandy. However, they faced yet another loss against Colombo in their last outing before the break.
Speaking about the Head-to-Head clashes, both have rubbed shoulders with each other in just four matches over the past two editions in 2020 and 2021. Dambulla have a slight edge over Galle as they have won two games and lost one. One match ended up with no result. Aura finished as a semi-finalist in the 2020 edition while they ended up third in the following season. Notably, Galle fell short twice of winning the title as they were the runners-up in the previous two editions.
|
Matches |
Dambulla Aura |
Galle Gladiators |
No Results |
|
4 |
2 |
1 |
1 |
Aura and the Gladiators last met in Match 16 of last year’s competition in which the Gladiators registered a win by a margin of nine runs. They batted first and managed to score only 134/7 in their allotted 20 overs. Kusal Mendis and Bhanuka Rajapaksa amassed 35 and 33 runs respectively to take their side’s total to above 130. In reply, Phil Salt and Janith Liyange mustered 41 and 51 runs respectively but it wasn’t enough as Dambulla fell short by just nine runs. Samit Patel and Isuru Udana picked up two scalps each to win a low-scoring encounter for their side.
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Date |
Winner |
Margin |
Venue |
|
14 Dec 2021 |
Galle Gladiators |
9 Runs |
Colombo (RPS) |
|
10 Dec 2021 |
No Result |
- |
Colombo (RPS) |
|
09 Dec 2020 |
Dambulla Aura |
4 Wickets |
Hambantota |
|
05 Dec 2020 |
Dambulla Aura |
9 Runs |
Hambantota |
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