Olcott Memorial Cricket from December 2-4

Anuradha ABEYSEKERA

The 13th annual Col. Henry Steel Olcott Memorial Trophy Cricket tournament will be held from December 2 to 4 at the Uyanwatta Stadium, Matara.

Old boys of eight leading Buddhist schools in the country, Rahula College (Matara), Ananda College (Colombo), Nalanda College (Colombo), Dharmapala College (Pannipitiya), Mahinda College (Galle), Dharmasoka College (Ambalangoda), Dharmaraja College (Kandy) and Maliyadeva College (Kurunegala) will vie for honours in the main tournament while the present cricketers of the respective schools will battle out in a separate six-a-side tournament. This was revealed during a press briefing at the Bloomfield Pavilion recently.

Rahula College OBA will host this year’s tournament for the second time of the history to celebrate their OBA-Colombo Branch’s 50th anniversary along with the 25th anniversary of the Colombo-OBA’s Sports Club. They previously conducted the event in 2003 as a part of school’s 80th anniversary coincided with Rahula College’s 70th year celebration in Sri Lankan school cricket scene. Since the inception of Olcott Memorial Trophy tournament in 1999 it has grown up to be a prominent annual inter schools’ Old Boys event in the country.

The tournament was the brain child of Olcott Foundation’s Charter Committee formed in 1996, headed by the Sri Lanka’s first test cricket captain and an old Nalandian Bandula Warnapura.

With the aim to strengthen the friendship among the Buddhist schools established by the Buddhist Theosophical Society, the committee decided to conduct a cricket tournament with the assistance of Old Boys’ Associations of the respective schools.

Nalanda Old Boys volunteered to host the inaugural tournament parallel to their school’s 75th anniversary at the Campbell Place grounds where the proceedings were disrupted after first day’s play due to the LTTE suicide attack on then President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumarathunga in Colombo.

The matches were postponed and completed in January, 2000 where Maliyadeva Old Boys emerged champions.

The school boys’ event was introduced in 2002 with the Cricket Foundation of Mahinda College taking initiative to spread brother hood among the school boys’ through values and good qualities in sportsmanship.

Since then the school boys’ event has continued alone with the main Old Boys’ tournament and played a pivotal role in developing cricket in all participant schools.

Mahinda College OBA conducted the last year’s tournament at the Galle International Stadium and walked away with the main tournament’s champion shield while Dharmapala College became the school boys’ event’s winners.