Cricket thrived at Kandy in the early days

by Hafiz Marikar

St. Anthony's College Katugastota has a proud cricketing history.

The Antonians are one of the oldest cricket playing schools in the country. Among the schools playing in the Catholic Quadrangular Tournament, Antonians are the oldest. They started playing from 1899., but only in 1903 was the team formation done and the first Antonian cricket team was formed in 1903 by late Fr. Dom Andrew VanLangenberg OSB. The sporting Father, having captained Royal College in the year 1896, joined the order of the Sylvester-Benedictine and was stationed in Kandy. In the early years, there was a mutual understanding among the Head of the schools in Kandy, not like today, that few members of the staff were permitted to take part in the cricket matches of their respective schools.

Fr. Andrew Van Langenberg led the Antonans while Philip Buultjens and E.Boultion led the Trinity and Kingswood teams respectively. The idea of staff participation alongside schoolboys was to inculcate the rudiments of cricket, inspire, encourage and give the right direction to the young cricketer in building team spirit and proper sportsmanship. At that time, school teams were therefore appropriately called "clubs". Most of the matches were played with recognised clubs of Kandy and Colombo and British regimental units stationed in Kandy at the Barrack Square in Kandy, now called the Police Barracks.

At that time two letters "C.C" meaning Cricket Club were appended to the names of the schools. The inaugural cricket match of the St. Anthony's College CC was played with Colombo Carlton Cricket Club on 13th of April, 1903 at the Barracks Square in Kandy. This game went in favor of the Antonians by an innings and 129 runs in which Antonian skipper Fr. D. Andrew Van Langenberg notched an unbeaten 102 runs.

Then the first school game for the Antonians was against Dharmaraja College, which the Antonians won by 109 runs in 1904. In those early days Antonians were treated in an off-handed manner. They were not allowed to participate in the Inter-Schools Tournament for the first division.

But the Antonians proved themselves when they beat some of the bigger cricketing schools in 'one-day' friendlies and they could not be kept down any longer.

In those early years, Bogambara was the stronghold and it was an achievement to beat the Antonains there, at that time they were housed at the present St. Sylvester's College premises.

In the first Antonian team on record in 1899, some of the names are (two) Vanlangenbergs, (three) Lawrance, (two) Schofuld, Bulner, Hill, (two) De Silva's. In 1913 captained by Cecil C. Senaratne, who later played representative cricket, the other Antonians were C.H. Wittachy, V.J. Moldrick, V.J.Taylor, C. Sela, B.A.Perera, J. McCarres, B. Weerasinghe, A. Fernando., R.Siriwardene and H. Karunaratne.

In 1914, into the Antonian cricket came the 15-year-old Jack Anderson, he dominated school cricket until his final year in 1918. Those who find delight in facts and figures will find food for thought in analysing the great batsmanship of Jack Anderson. Without any doubt, he was the greatest batsman in Sri Lanka school cricket history of 123 years. He also had the highest individual score in school cricket 291 against S. Thomas' College. This record was there till recent times.

Anderson led the Antonians in 1917 - 1918, these two years were two of their finest cricket seasons. His team had players of the top grade. Then in 1920's, St. Anthony's continued to have top strong teams. In the early 1930's, the Antonains were still a force to be reckoned with. This was the period of Harry Jayasundara, possibly the greatest all rounder produced by the Antonains. His counterparts were Theodore de Silva, D.W. Gauthamadasa, Peter W. Fernando, J. Wanigasekara, M.D.Banda, C.C. Benzie, D.H. Weerasighe, R. Ratwatte, L.V.Berenger, B. Wettawe, J. Mack and Victor Jayasundera.

Then in the early 1940's, the Antonians had some fine cricketers like Ralph Harris, Victor Joseph, Hannans Jackie Hillman, A.B.Weerakoon, B. Samarasinghe, W. Moor, George Alston, Joe Andrews, Bertie Kurera, M. Mawjood and M. Zarook brothers, Hugh and Douglas Fernando brothers

In 1948, they had a very good season, and they were led by T.M.A. Cooray who was famous in coaching and umpiring, S.V. Samaradasa, T.K. Hannan, P. Abeyasinghe, S.Dunuwille, H.E. Cooray, L.S.Jayasnighe, C.A.G. Dissanayke and S. Pararajasingham.

In the mid 1950's, came a another fine era for the Antonians with cricketers like , A.C.M.Lafir, Ronnie Stephens, Saliya Dorenegama, and his brother Ranjith, G.A. Pamunuwa, Rangith Samarasekara, A. Sherifdeen, Michael Raj, Anton Rambukpotha.

In 1956 W. Premaratne led the another great team to championship honors. In that year, they had some fine individual players _ Franklyn and his brother Ralston Burke, H.M.Muthalib, Randy and Christopher Sims, Jayantha Udukumbura, Mahes Guantilake, Bernard and Bede Perera, Shanthtial Wijewardene, Premala de Silva, Sunil Fernando. Lakshman Panditharathne, Shane Balthazar and his brother, Marlon Von Haght, Damian Nadaraja, Ruwan Kalpage, Pradeep Fernando, Meryl Dunuwille, Nuwan Kalpage, Angelo Wickremasinghe, Anura Dunuwille, Piyal Wijetunge, Sajith Fernando, Amdedha Elepola, Asanka Ratnaweera, Umesh de Alwis , Daminda Kolugola.

To wrap up the proceedings, there is the world famous cricketer Muttiah Muralitharan.