Olcott Memorial Cricket Tourney from December 2 to 4

The seventh annual cricket tournament for the Col. Henry Steel Olcott Memorial Trophy is to be played this year at Asgiriya Stadium, Kandy on December 2, 3 and 4. This year's organisers being Dharmaraja College Sports Foundation. Old Boys from eight leading Buddhist schools in the island Ananda, Nalanda, Dharmasoka, Dharmapala, Mahinda, Rahula, Maliyadeva and the hosts Dharmaraja.

The idea behind this annual feature is to promote brotherhood among Old Boys of these schools to promote and mobilize them to play a prominent role after leaving school for a better society. These details were disclosed at a press briefing held at Bloomfield Pavilion last week.

To add more colour to the tournament, a Six-a-Side Tournament too has been organised for the present cricketers of eight schools on December 2.

Losers in this championship will play for the Plate Trophy.

The tournament proper will commence on December 3 with all eight teams engaging in the game, and the losers too playing the preliminary round of the Six-a-Side for the Plate. On Sunday, December 4, the semi-finals and finals of both Cup and Plate will be conducted with the awards ceremony scheduled for the evening.

Ananda College and Dharmasoka College have won the tournament twice each while Maliyadeva and Dharmaraja have won the Cup on one occasion each.

Sri Lanka's first Test Captain Bandula Waranapura and World Cup winning team skipper Arjuna Ranatunga will represent Nalanda and Ananda respectively. Meanwhile the other six schools too will be represented by former stalwarts of the game in the recent past.

Ranjith Herath and Senarath Jayasundera are Joint Secretaries, while S.B. Herath serves as the Co-ordinating Secretary for this year's tournament.

The organisers have made arrangements to telecast the tournament via Rupavahini's Eye Channel. Former Superintendent of Police T.B. Talwatte will be the chief guest on the final day while newly elected Diyawadana Nilame of the Sri Dalada Maligawa Nilanga Dela Bandara will be the guest of honour on this day.

Chamara Kapugedera who led the Dharmaraja First XI team this season will give a miss to the tournament as he is away from the island doing national Service with the touring Sri Lanka team. It was also mentioned that the centenary big match between Dharmaraja and Kingswood is to be staged next year on a grand scale.