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| Saturday, 6 March 2004 |
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Ananda have the edge over Nalanda by Dinesh Weerawansa Unbeaten Ananda should have the advantage when they take on their traditional rivals Nalanda in their 75th annual Battle of the Maroons cricket encounter which starts at the Singhalese Sports Club grounds, Maitland Place tomorrow. Apart from being unbeaten with four outright wins this season, Ananda's morale too would be high as they would come in to the big 'un with their smashing win over Nalanda last year. This year, Ananda will have the services of the entire team, except for one, which won the 74th Battle of the Maroons by an innings last year. All of them would carry sweet memories of last year's triumph and would start on an advantageous position. But Nalanda's capabilities and talents could just not be undermined. Though Ananda go in as favourites, Nalanda certainly has the ability to turn the form book upside down. Furthermore, a big match win for Nalanda has been long overdue. The Nalandians have been dreaming of a win for the last four decades as their last win in the series was recorded way back in 1953 under W.W. Silva. The Battle of the Maroons series between the two leading Buddhist schools in the island, was inaugurated in 1924. The series has a proud history of producing Sri Lanka's future Test stars and has so far produced four cricketers who have led the Sri Lanka national team Arjuna Ranatunga and Marvan Atapattu of Ananda and Bandula Warnapura and Roshan Mahanama of Nalanda. Of the 74 matches played so far in the series, Ananda takes the lead with 12 wins to Nalanda's six while the rest have been drawn. Ananda will have the services of the man who led them to victory at last year's encounter Damindu Kularatne. He won both man of the match and best batsman awards as Ananda won last year after 21 long wait with the previous win in the series being in 1982 under Deepal Dharmasekera. The SSC wicket for the game looks good for both batsmen and bowlers. Winning the toss is certainly a bonus as the quick bowlers could extract early life of the wicket in the initial session. But as the play progress, it should turn out to be a good batting wicket, unless the batsmen play rash strokes and throw away their wickets. Ananda is lucky to regain the services of their 2003 victorious captain Damindu Kularatne, who joins the team just after returning from Bangladesh, where he played for Sri Lanka Under-19 at the Youth World Cup. His experience is vital for a big game like this. Kularatne scored a fluent century in the only game he has played for Ananda this season before he committed for the national youth team. Besides Kularatne, Ananda has many elegant stroke makers and if they bat first and put on a big total, then it would put a big pressure on Nalanda. But on the other hand, if Nalanda bowlers could come out with a plan to restrict Ananda to a modest total, then they would be psychologically up and could look forward to consolidate from there. It is pity that the two teams have given up the playing conditions applicable last year with the intention of making the match more positive. If not for those rules, there would have been a result last year. Now that they have gone back to the good old formula, the possibilities are more to experience another drab draw, unless one side takes early control with some outstanding performance. |
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