Dharmaraja take on Ananda

Kandy Sports Correspondent

Dharmaraja College, Kandy, will take on Ananda College, Colombo for the P. W. Perera Challenge trophy cricket watch which will be played at the Lake View grounds, Kandy on Friday and Saturday (February 10 and 11) with play commencing at 9.45 a.m.

The P. W. Perera challenge trophy was introduced in 1999 by the Old Anandians Sports Club headed by its President Sanjiva Senanayake in recognition and appreciation made by P. W. Perera as the cricket coach to uplift the standard of cricket both at Dharmaraja College and Ananda College.

P. W. Perera played for Ananda College from 1938 to 1941, captaining the side in 1940. He was also the first Anandian to captain the Combined Colleges cricket team in 1941.

He holds the bowling record in the Ananda-Nalanda Big Match when he captured 8 for 51 in 1940.

He cut his teeth in cricket coaching at Dharmaraja College when barely out of his teens and almost as the same age of some of the cricketers the then Principal of Dharmaraja College L. H. Mettananda appointed him as the cricket coach in 1941 to coach both the junior and Senior cricketers.

He coached the Rajans from 1941 to 1944 and during this period Dharmaraja College produced some outstanding cricket teams. During the cricket seasons 1941-42 and 1942-43 Dharmaraja College led by T. B. Talwatte won their cricket matches that were played by them. Their best performance was when they beat Trinity College for the first time by 5 runs at Lake View in 1941. In 1942 Dharmaraja College had the distinction of defeating Trinity College led by T. B. Werapitiya by 100 runs at the Asgiriya Grounds in 1942. That year the Rajans had five centurians in their side such as late P. L. Arthur Alwis, P. M. Talwatte, T. B. Talwatte, M. Gunawardena, Raja Mettananda and S. G. Munasinghe.

In 1944 P. W. Perera left Dharmaraja College to join the Department of Prisons but the cricketers coached and trained by him continued to maintain the high standards set by him. It was the coaching of late P. W. Perera which took the Rajans cricket to great heights and came to be recognised a leading cricket playing school even cricket was first introduced to Dharmaraja College in 1903, at least in a recognised form.

P. W. Perera while serving in the Prisons Department took over the coaching of Ananda College in 1953 and he functioned in this capacity for 15 years till 1973, leaving out the years in which he was based in the outstations which did not permit him time to coach.

During the time, he was the cricket coach at Ananda College, cricket blossomed in that institution and a solid foundation was laid for the future test cricketers to be born. From 1973 onwards he was coaching the Ananda College junior cricketers until his demise in 2006.

He also had coached stints at St. Servatius College, Matara and St. Anthony's College, Kandy, when he was transferred to Matara and Kandy respectively.

According to records Ananda College won the inaugural P. W. Perera Trophy game in 1999 and since then it has been retained by Ananda as it is awarded only when there is an outright victory. Between 1999 and 2011 the Anandians have scored four outright victories.

This year the Rajans have the record of playing 11 matches, winning 3 outright and drawn the rest. The two teams appear to be of equal strength and the Rajans have the home ground advantage and have a good chance in taking the P. W. Perera trophy for the first time to Lake View.