The 93rd Battle of the Maroons between Sri Lanka’s two premier Buddhist schools, Ananda College and Nalanda College, will take place on 4 and 5 March at the Singhalese Sports Club (SSC), Colombo.
As crowds had been restricted due to Covid and other factors, this year’s Battle of the Maroons will be played with the crowds returning to the stands for the first time since 2020. Already the old boys are planning their batch tents to have a ball at the SSC.
After a long wait of 69 years, Nalanda College beat their arch rivals in last year’s encounter and the Anandians will be hoping to bring back the Dr. N.M. Perera Trophy to Ananda Mawatha. At present Ananda leads the Big Match series with 12 wins. Nalanda has 7 matches under its belt while 73 matches have ended in a draw.
The limited overs match between the two schools playing for the P. De S. Kularatne Trophy will be played at the same venue on 12 March for the 46th time. Ananda College leads this series with 26 wins while Nalanda College has 15 wins under its belt.
Ananda College will be led by right-arm fast bowler and third-year player Nethma Samaraweera. He has 10 wickets so far this season while leading a fairly young side. Left-handed batter and third-year player Viduna Wijebandara is the highest run scorer this season for Ananda College with more than 500 runs under his name.
Iruth Gimshan, who is also a third-year player, is close behind with more than 450 runs under his belt. With the ball for the Anandians, right-arm off spinner Kithma Widanapathirana has taken 40 wickets this season. His partner in crime Ashinsha Deshan has taken 37 wickets bowling left-arm leg spin.
Nalanda College is led by right-handed batsman Chanul Athukorala, who is a fourth-year coloursman. Athukorala missed out most of the season due to dengue and the Advanced Level examinations. In the six matches he played, Athukorala amassed more than 100 runs with the bat.
Nalanda’s key batter in the side is none other than Rusiru Vilochana. The third-year coloursman is the only player to score 1,000 runs this season in the school circuit. His tally stands at 1,069 runs with two centuries and six half-centuries. His best this season was a mammoth 188 against St. Peter’s College.
Third-year player Minod Caldera has taken 38 scalps with the ball for Nalanda College, including 2 five-fors, while Sajitha Vithanage has picked up 36 wickets with 3 five-fors. Vithanage, who is a fourth-year coloursman, was also the stand-in skipper of the side in the absence of Athukorala.
Ananda and Nalanda Colleges have so far produced the highest number of national cricketers for Sri Lanka. Six of them – the late Bandula Warnapura, Arjuna Ranatunga, Roshan Mahanama, Marvan Atapattu, Mahela Jayawardene, and Dinesh Chandimal – have had the honour of leading the country.
It is worth noting that the first Test cricket captain of the country, the late Bandula Warnapura, was a proud product of Nalanda College, while Arjuna Ranatunga, who led the Sri Lankans in the famous World Cup victory in 1996, hails from Ananda.