Despite lack of sporting venues in Kandy:

Rugby fever spreds as cricket drama fades

Hafiz Marikar

As the inter schools cricket season draws to a close and the last few overs are being bowled, there are those who are looking forward to a more vigorous game rugby, the first school game will kick-off on Friday.

Here in the hills, the schools cricket tournament for the year, will come to an end in a fortnight. The Kandy schools have performed very well despite several obstacles beyond their control, but still continue the progress with huge young talent available in Kandy for the future of cricket in Sri Lanka. In the Last season Trinity College dominated the school scene by winning the league, one day and the T20.

Last week, there were two big matches, between Trinity-St.Anthony’s and Vidyartha – St. Sylvester’s. Both matches ended without results. On Saturday Trinity will play the Antonians at Asgiriya, in their limited-over game and on Sunday, St.Sylvester’s will play Vidyartha at the same venue. On March 23 and 24 the oldest big match in Kandy, which is over one hundred years will be played between Kingswood and Dharmaraja. That too will be played at Asgiriya and in the following week will be the one dayer.

It is interesting to highlight some of the difficulties faced by several schools in the Kandy District with the lack of playing venues for practices and matches, but still perform at their best.

Except for Trinity, St. Anthony’s and Dharmaraja Colleges, others have no venues to play their matches or in some instances suitable grounds to practice.

Although the parent body for cricket in Sri Lanka has one of the best cricket venues at Pallakelle and opened for hiring this venue for fixtures, the constrain here is that it’s far from the city and most schools find it difficult to get there. The expenses of travel, ground charges, maintenances and security controls etc are above their means.

Earlier, Police Ground was provided for these schools to play their fixtures. With the increase of the schools tournament fixtures, there are many difficulties faced in hiring as most of the times, the venue is booked. Therefore, most schools have a tight schedule to accommodate their fixtures.

The Police grounds has a matting wicket and the schools avoid this as all cricket wickets elsewhere are Turf wickets. Trinity College International Stadium is now the only venue used by most of the schools for its convenience, easy access and nominal charges.

Some time ago, the Peradeniya University grounds was also used, but later several restrictions made it difficult for booking. Therefore, its time for the Kandy Schools to get together and plan out a strategy on how to resolve this problem as in future, there will be more and more school teams qualifying to play the game at a higher level. This does not refer only to cricket but to all other sports as well. Initially the grounds at Kingswood and Vidyartha should be up graded on apriority basis thereafter the ones at Rahula, St. Sylvester’s to follow on.

Pallekele International Cricket Stadium is located about a half-hour drive from Kandy. The stadium was built by the State Engineering Corporation of Sri Lanka and is designed along the lines of Super Sport Park in Centurion, South Africa. The project was initiated by Lakshman Kiriella when he was the sports minister and the finish was done by Minster Mahindananda Aluthgamage.

The Pallekele stadium is wholly owned by Sri Lanka Cricket and is set to displace the Trinity College Stadium, which has hosted Tests, one days from 1983 to 2007, as the international venue of choice around Kandy. Before we were granted Test status, all the overseas teams when they visited the hills, played at the Trinity College Stadium.

Sri Lanka Cricket fearing that Club cricket alone would not be enough to keep Sri Lankan cricket competitive, the Inter-Provincial Cricket Tournament was created as a domestic first-class cricket tournament in Sri Lanka in 1990. From the inauguration of the tournament in 1990, participating teams varied from year to year. The tournament started with four provincial teams. They were Western Province, Southern Province, North Western Province and Kandurata. With the Provincial tournaments also being active, the need for additional venues is becoming more and more a requirement than a necessity.