Most popular awards under three divisions

Voting for the 35th Observer-Mobitel Most Popular Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year contests is in full swing with the reopening of schools for the first term.

After 34 successive years of the traditional way of voting for the Most Popular Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year, under All-Island and the Outstation categories, the format of the competition has been changed this year. Three Observer-Mobitel Most Popular Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year titles will be awarded from this year under Platinum, Gold and Silver categories, representing Division One, Two and Three schools of the Under-19 inter-school tournament.

This change has been made to fall in line with schools playing under three divisions in the Under-19 tournament conducted by the Sri Lanka Schools Cricket Association.

Sri Lanka’s national mobile telephone network Sri Lanka Mobitel is the proud sponsor of the country’s first ever inter-school cricket awards organised by Sri Lanka’s flagship English newspaper – the Sunday Observer.

The Observer Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year was inaugurated in 1978/79 at a time there was not a single awards ceremony for school cricket and Royal’s Ranjan Madugalle, the current ICC Chief Match Referee, was the first recipient of the prestigious award.