Early success helps Mahanama progress

Early success helps Mahanama progress

Chris Dhambarage

Mahanama College Colombo, having already made a splendid start to the new season, is targeting the inter-school 50-over knockout title and to finish among the top five in the current under-19 division one cricket tournament.

The team which is studded with five senior coloursmen has struck early form and was able to register two morale-boosting outright victories against St. Anthony’s College Katugastota and Bandaranayake College Gampaha respectively.

This has been a huge turn around for Mahanama College who had the ignominy of losing three matches outright in the previous season against Zahira College, Prince of Wales College Moratuwa and St. Servatius College Matara while failing to register a single victory.    

However this early success has certainly provided Mahanama College the inspiration to perform well in the season as they took first innings honours over Moratu MV and drew the rest of the matches played in the third term against Maliyadeva College Kurunegala, Isipathana College, Royal Panadura and Lumbini MV.   

This has been a tremendous effort from Mahanama College considering the fact that they have experienced many difficulties and challengers in the recent past and more importantly they are still suffering without a playground of their own even for their practice sessions.

However the school has been able to maintain high standards on the field despite these major setbacks and, over the years, has continued to produce some outstanding schoolboy cricketers for the Sri Lanka under-19 pool.

In fact, last season, they had the honour of producing a prolific run getter in the form of Pawan Devinda who went on to become the first schoolboy cricketer to complete one thousand runs for that season.   

Before that they had the credit of producing another versatile cricketer in the form of Duleeka Thissakuttige who led the side with a great amount of success and also went on to represent the Sri Lanka under-19 team.

The elegant left-hander displayed his batting prowess when he struck a crucial unbeaten 70 under tremendous pressure in the second innings of the youth test match against the touring England team at the Galle International Stadium last year.

Since then he has turned out to be a permanent member of the youth national team and also had the distinction of touring India for the one-day quadrangular involving the hosts, Australia and the West Indies.

This year as well the players have shown a lot of commitment and determination and the manner in which they recorded the two outright victories against St. Anthony’s College Katugastota and Bandaranayake College Gampaha was really outstanding.

In fact they completely dominated the fixture against the Antonians where they triumphed by a comprehensive margin of ten wickets following a season-best effort of five wickets for 15 runs from the off-spinner Dulanjana Seneviratne who so far has captured over 30 wickets this year.

The former Sri Lanka Schools under-17 player produced another excellent spell of bowling to claim eight wickets for 45 runs in the drawn fixture against Isipathana College and also captured seven wickets for 29 runs against Moratu MV.

In addition their victory over Bandaranayake College Gampaha was fashioned by two of their most experienced players all rounder Subuddhi Kaushalya who hit a fighting half-century and Dinuka Chamath who returned career best figures of six wickets for 42 runs.        

Subuddhi Kaushalya has already made some splendid contributions to the side as a genuine all rounder having captured over 25 wickets and scoring more than 350 runs while Dinuka Chamath has lived up to expectations as their key bowler claiming over 22 wickets from seven outings played so far. 

This season Mahanama College will be captained by the experienced fast bowler Nayana Prabath who has got into his rhythm during the last couple of outings after having missed out the earlier matches due to injuries.      

The Mahanama College First XI Cricket Pool for 2013/14 season:

Nayana Prabath (Captain), Kalana Ashan, Shanith Kavinda, Niduka Welikala, Subuddhi Kaushalya, Dulanjana Seneviratne, Umesh Sachith, Gihan Sanjeewa, Kalindu Lakshan, Dinuka Chamath, Senura Welagedera, Ishara Rashmika, Milinda Abeysuriya, Sahan Peiris, Thanula Wickremasinghe, Dilshan Dananjaya, Manjula Perera (Coach), Kelum Gangodawila (Assistant Coach), Leslie Harishchandra (Master-in-Charge)

Upcoming fixtures:

January 6/7: v Dharmapala MV Pannipitiya at Kalutara

January 13/14: v Zahira College Maradana at Katunayake

January 21/22: v De Mazenod College at Kandana

January 24/25: v Trinity College Kandy at Asgiriya

January 28/29: v Joseph Vaz College at Wennappuwa

February 6/7: v St. Servatius College Matara at Kalutara

February 10/11: v Maris Stella College Negombo at Katunayake

February 17/18: v Thurstan College at Kalutara

March 21/22: v D. S. Senanayake College (Big Match) at P. Sara Oval

March 30: D. S. Senanayake College (one-day game) at SSC ground