Minister Keheliya Rambukwella in all smiles as he makes presentation...:

Rajapakse third Royalist to win school cricket’s top award

By Leslie FERNANDO

CRICKET AWARDS: Two captains Bhanuka Rajapakse of Royal College and Malith Chathuranga Gunasekera of Tissa MMV Kalutara were the proud winners of the two main awards in the 32nd Observer-Mobitel Schoolboy Cricketer of the year All-Island and Outstation awards respectively at the awards ceremony held on Monday night-June 14 at the Sirimavo Bandaranaike Hall, BMICH.

Bhanuka Rajapakse, the Captain of Royal College was the Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year All Island and Malith Chathuranga Gunasekera of Tissa MMV Kalutara was the winner of the Outstation Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year. They were picked by the panel of Umpires from the Association of Cricket Umpires Sri Lanka, Central Province Cricket Umpires Association, Southern Province Cricket Umpires Association and assisted by the Sri Lanka Schools Cricket Association.

Rajapakse became the third Royalist to win coveted award Ranjan Madugalle former Royal and Sri Lanka cricket captain and the present IoC Chief Match Referee was the first winner in 1978 and also in 1979 while Roshan Jurangpathy the second Royalist won it in 1986. Royalist Rajapakse was happy to receive the cricketer Observer-Mobitel award from Old Thomian Chief Guest Minister Keheliya Rambukwella at the Gala Awards show.

Started at 11 years

18-year-old Bhanuka came into cricket in a big way and has played cricket from the age of 11 years. He has represented Royal teams in the under-12, under-13, under-15, under-17, and under-19 age categories and has captained the under-17 and under-19 teams. A fine allrounder, Bhanuka is a left-hand bat and right-arm medium fast bowler. As he was on national duty with the Sri Lanka under-19 team on tour to South Africa, Australia and New Zealand World Cup in the 2009-2010, he played a lesser number of matches for the college. Bhanuka played only 8 matches and scored 350 runs, including two centuries against St. Sebastian’s College (132), Trinity (103). He also scored three half centuries. He also claimed 22 wickets in the eight matches he played.

Young Rajapakse had played for Sri Lanka under-19 team, Sri Lanka Schools Invitation XI, Combined XI, SSC, and Barisal Division in Bangladesh.

He captained the Royal team in 2009-2010 and has many achievements to his credit. He was the vice captain of Sri Lanka under-19 cricket team for the Australian tour and the Tri-Nation competition played in Sri Lanka 2009, he was vice-captain of the Combined team for the 50-over and Twenty20 tournaments organised by the Sri Lanka Cricket. Bhanuka scored an unbeaten 154 against Australia under-19 team in III balls with 14 fours and 8 sixes which is the highest individual score against Australia under-19 by a visiting player in Australia that’s in October 2009. He was momentarily featured in the front cover of the U-19 World Cup 2010 tournaments guide printed by the ICC along with Nic Maddisson the Kiwi player and Virat Kohli of Indian the winning captain of the World Cup. In the same magazine, Bhanuka was singled out as the player to watch in the Sri Lanka team.

Before getting the Schoolboy Cricketer Award, Bhanuka won two Man of the Match awards at the under-19 World Cup Tournament 2010 held in New Zealand and emerged as Sri Lanka’s highest scorer and fourth highest scorer in the entire tournament. He had a strike rate of 92 which was the best among the top four scorers of the tourney.

Tall scoring

Bhanuka leads the all time under-19 high scorers among Sri Lankan U-19 players 154 not out against Australia in 2009 October, second in the list of all-time U-19 Sri Lanka players-Best bowling figures in an innings, taking 6 wickets for 29 runs against South Africa U-19 in Johanesburg in December 2009, third in the list of all-time U-19 Sri Lanka players with 771 runs as at 10th June 2010, in U-19 tournament matches. He was the Man of the Match and the Best Batsman at the finale of Munchee Limited over schools tournament held in April 2010.

Bhanuka joined the elite group at Royal College by scoring 750 runs in the 1st year, 850 runs in the 2nd year, and scored more than 1,300 runs in the 2008-2009 and 648 runs in eleven innings (he was on national duty with the Sri Lanka U-19 team on tour in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand World Cup) in the 2009-2010 season.

Before coming on to the under 19 age category, Bhanuka captained Royal College under 17 in the ‘A’ division tournament and was the second highest scorer in 2008, highest scorer for the school XI in the SLC Inter-Provincial Twenty20, Tournament 2008-2009, won the Best Batsman Award in the final and won two Man of the Match awards in the Sirasa Sports Twenty20 Schools Tournament 2008-2009.

He was also captain of the champion team ‘Coke-Reds’ at the Coca-Cola Cricket pathway tournament 2009.

With success pouring on him he however, did not go overboard and was humble and paid a grateful tribute to his school Principal Upali Gunasekera and school teachers and parents for encouraging him in the game. He also paid glowing tributes to his coaches Nelson Mendis, W.A.N. Silva, U.S.C. Perera, N. Devarajan, M. Shiraz, M. Samsudeen, Gamini Perera, Chulaka Amerasinghe, Aravinda de Silva who helped him along during various stages of his school cricket career.