Trinity concludes glorious season with Big Match win

S M Jiffry Abdeen - Kandy Sports Correspondent

When Trinity College, Kandy defeated their traditional rivals St Anthony's College, Katugastota, by an innings and one run at the Asgiriya Stadium at the 96th encounter of the hill capital's ‘Battle of the Blues’, it was three celebrations rolled into one for the Trinity supporters.

First it broke a 25 year old ‘hoodoo’ as their last win was way back in 1986 under Thushara Weerasuriya. Next it was their first win at the Asigiriya grounds since 1951.

Their last win at Asgiriya was in 1951 under Eustace Rulach who later was the Sports Editor of our sister paper Observer before migrating to Australia in the seventies. Their win of 1986 was achieved at Katugastota after the Anthonians had underestimated the Lions and set them a victory target which the Trinitians reached with many overs to spare.

The third one is that they set a new mark for schools in the Central Province and possibly Sri Lanka by registering their 11th victory and 10 of them by an innings. Thus they broke their own record before a large number of their supporters.

The decision in the 96th Big Match also broke a stalemate of 20 draws as the last time a decision was reached in this battle was in 1992 when Umesh de Alwis led the Antonians to an innings win at Katugastota and twenty years later the Trinitians paid them back with their own coin.

When the match began the new curator of the Asgiriya Stadium Krishan Dias told this correspondent that this is going to be a wicket which will be helpful to both bowlers and batsmen and the team playing with a better approach and positive cricket could emerge winners and it need not be the predicted favourites. This was also the first time that he had prepared a wicket for this big match. True to his word, the wicket was good and the Trinitians though losing some early wickets had scored 164 for 4 by lunch time.

In 247 minutes they had rattled up 302 for 8 wickets before applying the closure.

Akila Jayasundera though batting with an arm injury and in pain batted with grace and aggression to score 61 with 9 fours and 2 sixes and faced only 50 balls. This was after batting at number 8.

The Antonians made 77 for 4 in 33 overs but on the second day lost their sheet anchor Yohan Woods being run out. This singalled the collapse.

Trailing behind on first innings by 110 runs, the Antonians simply threw the game away by losing their first five second innings wickets for 24 against some fiery bowling by medium pacer Amrith Srimahan.

It was two dour partnerships involving Kavinda Pullukuttiarachchi, skipper Kanishka Ranaraja and Saranga Rajaguru which delayed the inevitable.

When the last few overs were being bowled the Antonian last pair of Dinuk Herath and Buwaneka were batting and the Trinitians were ahead only by a couple of runs and if those runs were got, then the lions would have to bat again, but there was no time as the mandatory overs were completed and a few minutes of the 60 minute allocation was remaining. But strangely they did not take those singles. On one occasion the ball travelled to the deep third man and the fielders were clustered around the striker but still they did not attempt to take those singles.

This could have saved them the match. It was a case of lost opportunities for the Antonians.

For Trinity's coach Sampath Perera, it was another feather in his cap as he had guided the lions to heights that they had never before reached.