Watch out for Rajans

by Hafiz Marikar

A school which has reached great heights in cricket over here in the hills is Dharmaraja College. In their last week's game they beat St. Benedict's College by five wickets thanks to some superb bowling from off spinner Asmitha Rajapakse who pocketed a match bag of 13 wickets for 101 runs.

The Rajans' first two games ended in draws against Dharmasoka College and Dharmapala College. On Thursday and Friday they played against St. Sylvester's College. The rest of the matches will be against St. Aloysius College, Zahira College, Bandaranayake College, Maliyadeva College and Royal College.

The 2016 games will be against De Mazenod College, St Anthony's College Wattala, St.Anthony's College Katugastota, Mahinda College, Trinity College, Ananda College, Nalanda College, Rahula College Matara, D.S.Senanayake College and the big match against Kingswood College on March 18 and 19 at the Pallekele Stadium.

The current Dharmaraja team is studded with some top cricketers which includes some experienced players. The most outstanding is the captain Wenula Galahetiyawa a fourth year player and Dagoba winner, the highest award at Dharmaraja College. He is a left arm leg spinner and a left had bat. Last season he pocketed 75 wickets. His deputy is Deshan Gunasinghe a fifth year player who bats left hand and bowls left arm spin.

Then there is Ruchara Pepulawatta who is a fourth year player and Dagoba winner who opens the batting and bowls leg spin.The others who could do well are N Herath a third year player who bats right hand and is a good left arm medium pace bowler, Asitha Rajapakse a second year player who bowls right arm off spin, Bawantha Udangamuwa a right hand opening batsman, Lahiru Samarakoon a right arm pace bowler and member of the Sri Lanka under-19 team, K. Tillekeratne the stumper of the side and Gihan Witharana a third year left hand batsman and a right arm off spinner.

Coaching the side once again is Senaka Dissanayake one of the finest batsmen to come out of Dharmaraja who says he has a good talented side that has to perform. It was he who scored the first double century for his school against their rivals Kingswood College in the big match at Asgiriya in 1984.

In addition he made scores like 198 against Nalanda College, 119 against Zahira Colombo, 100 against St.Thomas' College Matale and 105 against S.. Thomas' College Mount Lavinia.

He played for the Sri Lanka Schools under-19 team which toured Australia in 1984 under Aravinda de Silva. He also played for Kandy Cricket Club and had a stint in Australia in the mid 1990s. He is a level two coach.

Dharmaraja has a long cricketing history and produced some top class players like Arthur Alwis, the first centurion of the school, T. B. Talwatte, T. B. Kehelgamuwa who represented Sri Lanka and the late Sonny Yatawara, Bertie Nilagoda, the Jayasundera brothers Ananda, Daya and Upananda, David Karunaratne, D. D. Somapala, D. D.Hemapala, Gamini Gunatilleke (Snr.), G. S. Ratnayake, Mahinda Pethiyagoda, Priyantha Weeragoda, Ravi Rajapakse, Jeevan Gajaweera, Indrajith Bandaranayake, A. Gannoruwa, D. D. P. Alwis, Shanthi Mendis, Senarth Alwis, the Alwis brothers, D. de C and D. de D, T. B. Marasinghe, Chandra de Silva, A. S. Ekanayake, Hemantha Ekanayake and Chamara Kapugedera to name some.

The Dharmaraja squad: Wenula Galahetiyawa (Captain), Desha Gunasinghe, Ruchara Pepulawatta, Niwantha Herath, Asmitha Rajapakse, Bawantha Udangamuwa, Lahiru Samarakoon, K Tillekaratne,G. Vithasarana, Chathuranga Aludeniya, Supun Vithanarachchi, Danushka Bandara, Shehan Vitharana, Gayanth Hewawitharana, N Hippola, Kasun Gunadena, Achintha Rupanayake, Shan Seneviratne with Manjula Udagedera as the MIC.