Lumbini enjoy another successful season

Chris Dhambarage

Lumbini College have completed another successful inter-school season where they came out with a magnificent performance to register seven outright victories.

They were able to make vast strides and made their presence felt in their 15 outings with impressive victories against Isipatana College, St. Aloysius College Galle, Carey College, Zahira College, Sri Rahula Katugastota, Mahanama College and Ananda Sastralaya.

This was certainly an improved performance from Lumbini College compared to their track record last year where they failed to register a single victory and also lost seven matches outright.

However the return of their veteran coach Dinesh Weerasinghe has brought a dramatic turn of events in the concluded inter school cricket season. Weerasinghe was the pioneer in uplifting the standard of cricket at Lumbini in the recent past where they have produced some outstanding cricketers namely Ranil Dhammika, Malinda Pushpakumara, Maduranga Zoysa, Dhanushka Malinga and Chamara Lasantha Perera.

This year too Lumbini have produced a Sri Lanka Under 19 player Maduka Liyanapathirana who has already shown signs of turning out to be an effective off spinner. The school of course does not have a playground of their own and are grateful to the neighbouring BRC and Colts Cricket Club for providing the ground facilities free of charge for hosting of their home matches.

In addition the Milinda Moragoda Foundation have also provided financial assistance to the school cricket team during the past few years. Lumbini had the honour of winning the inter school knock out title in 2002 under Sandun Senanayake having emerged runners up to Ananda in 2000.

The team was captained by fourth year coloursman and dynamic all rounder Vikum Sanyaja Bandara. The right arm opening bowler and right hand middle order batsman completed the unique double of capturing over 50 wickets and while scoring over 500 runs during the season.

Bandara was able to get the best out of his teammates and turned out to be a fine leader having earlier captained the school Under 15 and 17 teams successfully. He had a great amount of experience behind him having also represented the Under 15, 17 and 19 provincial and District teams.

Sri Lanka Under 19 cricketer Maduka Liyanapathirana was the vice captain of the side. The off spinner of course had a busy international calendar and as a result he was able to represent the school only in six first eleven matches.

He was able to showcase his talent and potential even from these limited opportunities where he captured a total of 53 wickets. He took a match bag of ten wickets on two occasions against Carey College and Zahira College respectively.

In addition he captured over five wickets in an innings on two other occasions against Joseph Vaz College, Wennappuwa and Isipatana College. But he was called for national duty midway in the season and had the honour of touring New Zealand for the ICC Under 19 World Cup having earlier toured South Africa and India.

Liyanapathirana also played a key role in Sri Lanka’s Tri Nation tournament triumph at home against Pakistan and Bangladesh. He was later selected to represent the SLC Combined XI in the Bank of Ceylon Inter Provincial one day tournament and in the Twenty20 tournament.

Lumbini had plenty of variety in their bowling attack with fourth year coloursman and leg spinner Zaman Ousman providing the necessary breakthrough at the correct time. He finished with a total of 24 wickets and also had a good run with the bat where he amassed 490 runs during the season. In fact he was one of the senior players in the line up having also captained the school Under 13 and 17 teams and having represented the Under 15, 17 and 19 District and Provincial teams.

Third year coloursman and right hand opening batsman Ravija Sandaruwan was one of their top run getters this year with over 750 runs to his credit. In addition he performed extremely well with the ball to claim 49 wickets as an off spinner.

Fourth year coloursman Ashan Rusiru was the other opening batsman of the team where he had a decent run of success with the bat while scoring 475 runs. The former vice captain of the Under 15 team and third year colursman Heshan Madushanka was another solid batsman with 365 runs to his credit. Among the newcomers right arm fast bowler Damith Priyadarshana has been impressive with a total of 620 runs to his credit including one century. He is also the captain of the Under 17 team and has captained the school Under 12, 13 and 15 teams.

Leg spinner Prabath Jayasuriya is another promising player where he captured over 50 wickets from 15 matches this season. Rashmika Kodituwakku was their regular wicket keeper and he had a very good season with a total of 34 victims behind the stumps.

The other members of the first eleven squad were Dinshaka Gihan, Lahiru Sanjeewa, Pradeep Wasantha, Damith Chaturanga, Rajitha Samadhi, Udaya Saman, Asanka Chamara, Lakitha Dushan and Shehan Sasitha.