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St Anthony's - St Joseph's Cricket History
By Mr.Rajjith Samarasekera
Just an eye opener for all the Antonians who were not aware that the first victory at Darley road was achieved by St.Anthony's in 1956, under the captaincy of Wijeyapala Premaratne who was the first schoolboy crickerter in Ceylon at that time.
The players who were involved in this game are as follows in batting order:-
Anton Rambukpotha,Ranjith Samarasekara, Wijeyapala Premaratne, Ranjith Doranegama,
S.W Seneviratne, Adrian Berenger, K. Thirunavakarasu, Stephen Joseph, Proff: Sheriffdeen,
Charlie Joseph, Heenbanda, Jayampathy Weragama, the others in the team consisted of
Upali Seneviratne, Brian Rambukpotha, Lakshman Algama.
Principal- Rev.Fr. Rosarti, Prefect of Games - Rev.Bro. Macky, Coach - T.M.A Cooray.
Analysis of the match:
S.J.C batted first commencing at 12 noon and were bowled out for 51 runs before the milk interval, which was scheduled at 2;00pm. Adrian Berenger captured six wickets and Stephen Joseph four wickets. We batted first after the ten minutes break and were bowled out for 149.
Although, we had Anton, Ranjith S and Prema who were centurians. S.J.C batted again and were six wicket down on the Friday for seventy odd runs Still 20 odd behind us escape a innings defeat. On Saturday morning we decided to go a liitle bit easy and Premaratne who was a non bowler gave away some runs and Abid Muzajee and Emilton Fernando along with Peter Liyanage got some runs and left us with a target of 123. Proff;Sheriffdeen took two blinding catches at slips which was virtualy match winners for us, even he did not know
that the ball stucked in hi hand. Again, Adrian Berenger captured another 5 wickets with Stephen Joseph getting 3 wickets and HeenBanda along with Charlie sharing the wickets. When were chasing our target, inspite of having 3 centurians in addition to Ranjith Doranegama and S.W. Seneviratne as very solid batsmen we lost 5 wickets for 30 odd runs, but both Ranjith Doranegama and S.W Seneviratne batted together with finally, Sherriffdeen and Stephen who pulled the match with a 3 wicket victory at around 4:45 pm. All this happened because we decided to hit the ball in order to overtake the S.J.C score that they had made against S.A.C which was 430 odd. That year this team was tagged as the "Batting Machine" as we had never failed to score over 300 runs in all previous games. We also had the first three in the batting order who were all "Eagle's Winners" in Anton, Ranjith S. and Prema.
In this match Adrian Berenger was awarded the "Eagle" on following Monday by
Fr. Rosarti. All tha happened was We unable to make in time for the 6:30 show,
which was our target on the Saturday.
I still some photgraphs taken by my 620 box camera of this match which are of course is valuvable to me.
*** I would like you all to know that the following in that photograph, which is with me, have passed away***
1. Rev.Fr.Rosarti - O.S.B - Principal
2. Rev.Bro. Macky - O.S.B - Later Fr. Macky
3. T.M.A. Cooray - Coach
4. Wijayapala Premaratne - First Schoolboy Cricketer in Ceylon (Then)
5. Ranjith Doranegama - Employee of Ceylon Brewaries
6. Anton Rambukpotha - Lecturer in the University
7. S.W.Seneviratne - Manager - People's Bank
8. K. Thirunavakarasu - Planter
9. Charlie Joseph - Planter - died in Australia
10. Lakashman Algama - Businessman - Died in Sri Lanka.
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