Bloomfield confident of remaining on top

Ranjan Anandappa

Bloomfield are Premier Division cricket champions for 2010/2011. This prestigious tournament was last won by the club in 2003/2004 under the leadership of Kumar Dharmasena.

This season Bloomfield was captained by Chamara Silva and they had Taranga Dhammika as coach. There was also Chinthana Jayasinghe who provided yeoman service to the captain and when skipper Chamara Silva was on national duty, Jayasinghe led the team well to guide the team towards annexing the coveted title.

Bloomfield had a very understanding cricket committee with Jayantha Seneviratne as Chairman and the committee spared no pains in guiding the team well for them to annex the coveted title.

The club which was inaugurated 117 years ago in the 19th century in 1893 has the proud distinction of producing the first Sri Lanka Test Captain Bandula Warnapura.

Besides Warnapura, the club has produced a host of other Sri Lanka 'Caps' in D.S. de Silva - the present Chairman of the Sri Lanka Cricket Board, Jayantha Seneviratne, Lalith Kaluperuma, Russel Hamer, Ajith de Silva, Norton Frederick, Anura Ranasinghe, Susantha Karunaratne, Sunil Jayasinghe, D.L.S. de Silva, Roshan Mahanama, Brendon Kuruppu, Pubudu Dassanayake, Ruwan Kalpage, Saman Jayantha, Kumar Dharmasena, Sanath Jayasuriya, Prasanna Jayawardena, Suraj Randiv, Chintaka Jayasinghe, Taranga Lakshita - that's a whole lot of good cricketers.

The club has the proud distinction of winning all the major domestic cricket tournaments conducted by Sri Lanka Cricket, namely Daily News Trophy, Maharajah Trophy, Robert Senanayake Trophy, Lakspray Trophy, P. Saravanamuttu Trophy.

Diesel & Motor Engineering Company Limited were the sponsors. The club had to face severe odds during inclement weather like the destruction of the boundary wall, whereby the ground was waterlogged and cricket had to be stopped.

In the past, the club had two cricket conscious gentlemen at the helm in Shelly Wickremasinghe and Upali Dharmadasa who spared no efforts in keeping the club moving during difficult times.

The present Executive Committee of the club has Hirantha Perera at the top with an able committee to take it through many years to come.

President Hirantha Perera said that he will start on the development work within the next three months and is confident of taking the club forward with the active participation of the members.