Spare a thought for the Antonians

by Hafiz Marikar

A school which was once a major force to be reckoned with in school cricket St. Anthony's College, Katugastota are confident of doing well like some of their teams of the past in the new cricket season.

St Anthony's College have not only had several champion teams but have also produced some of the finest cricketers who have done Sri Lanka proud with their achievements on the cricketing field. Greatest of them all are undoubtedly batsman Jack Anderson and spin bowler Muttiah Muralitharan.

Anderson had the unique distinction of scoring five centuries in the 1918 cricket season with a mammoth 291 against S.Thomas' College Mount Lavania, which was the highest individual score in school cricket for a long time. He was the first to score a century at the Trinity College ground at Asgiriya.

However the standout of all was arguably the world's greatest off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan who captured 800 Test wickets in 133 Tests.

This season the Antonians are playing in the division II and their first game against Wesley College ended in a draw. They lost to S. Thomas' College and other two other games against St. Thomas' College Matale and Kingswood College ended in draws.

Their next game is against Ananda on November 12 and 13 before taking on Rewatha College, Balapitiya and Siri Piyarathana College Padukka. In the new year they will take on Royal College, Dharmaraja College, St. Xavier's College, St. Sebastian's College, Kalutara Vidyalaya, Sri Devananda College Ambalangoda, S de S Jayasinghe College, St. Joseph's College, St. Peter's College, St. Benedict's College and Trinity College in the big match at Asgiriya.

Sadly the Antonians today are struggling due to poor coordination. In the good old days they had top class coaches like TMA Cooray, TK Hannana, Merril Dunuwille, Sunil Fernando, Lakshman Panditharatne Sunil Wickremanayke and Gamini Debehapuwa to name some of them. A big hand should go to that great principal Rev. Fr. Stephen Abraham for his contributions to promote cricket.

This season the Antonians are coached by old boy Prasad Ranawake who captained the school team in 2001/2 and ended fourth in the League. He played for the Sri Lanka under-17 team that toured Pakistan in 2001 and the Sri Lanka under-19 team at the Youth World Cup held in New Zealand. A Level One coach he also worked for Sri Lanka Cricket as a spin bowling educator.

This time the Antonian team has no less than five senior players. They are being led by fourth year player Kanishka Uggalpaya who is an allrounder. His deputy is Mohamed Alfar. He too is a fourth year player. The other fourth year player in the side is Kavindu Yapa Bandara.

Jaindu Himasara and Lakjeewa Wijebandara are second year players.

St Anthony's squad: Kanishka Uggalpaya (captain), Mohamed Alfrad, Kavindu Yapa Bandara, Janidu Himsara, Lakjeewa Wijebandara, Thiksha Gunasinghe, Dilanka Wijerathna, Sathish Wickramarachchi, Rumesh Premarathne, Sunera Jayasinghe, Devin Perera, Virajitha Jayasinghe, Dion Stouter, Sadaruwan Dharmarathne, Mohamed Abser and Mokshana Wickramanayake.