Jaffna Kings won the Lanka Premier League (LPL) 2024 after beating Galle Marvels by nine wickets in the final on Sunday, July 21 at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo.
Jaffna also won their fourth title in five seasons and the only time they missed out was in 2023 when B-Love Kandy came up trumps. Rilee Rossouw was their star performer against Galle after he racked up his eighth T20 hundred.
Chasing 185 was expected to be challenging for the Kings. It looked trickier after Dwaine Pretorius dismissed Pathum Nissanka for a golden duck on the very first ball of the run-chase. From there on, Rossouw took charge and got to his fifty off 29 balls. He upped the ante and racked up his century off 50 balls. The southpaw stayed not out on 106 off 53 balls with nine fours and seven sixes.
The 34-year-old Rossouw got an able partner in Kusal Mendis, who lent him support with a knock of 72 off 40 balls, laced with eight fours and two sixes. The duo put on 185 runs for the second wicket as the Kings chased down the target with 26 balls left in their innings.
Jason Behrendorff shines for Jaffna Kings
Before Rossouw and Mendis performed, the Jaffna bowlers, especially Jason Behrendorff and Asitha Fernando, tried their hearts out. Behrendorff finished with figures of 4-0-18-2 on an excellent pitch for batting after he got the wickets of both the Galle openers, Alex Hales and Niroshan Dickwella.
Fast bowler Fernando also hit the right channels. He got the wickets of Tim Seifert, Janith Liyanage and Bhanuka Rajapaksa. For Galle, Seifert laid the platform with a knock of 47 off 37 balls. Thereafter, Rajapaksa made 82 runs off 34 balls with eight fours and six sixes, but their efforts went in vain.