The Battle of the Maroons, the traditional big match between Ananda and Nalanda, the origin of which dates back to the 1920s, will this year be played out from 27 February to 1 March.
It is a special cricketing encounter which has always been played in a spirit of brotherhood as Nalanda College had been first formed as a branch school of Ananda, before being registered as a separate school in 1925.
Having played 95 games between them, Ananda College has won the encounter and with that the Dr N M Perera Challenge Trophy on 12 occasions. They last won the Big Match in 2003 under the captaincy of Daminda Kularatne.
After a lapse of almost seven decades Nalanda recorded their seventh win in the series under the captaincy of Dineth Samaraweera in 2022, and the match has not provided a result during the last 3 years.
Nalanda’s previous win had been way back in 1953 and they will certainly be determined to retain the Trophy with them while Ananda will fight hard to win it back.
The Battle of the Maroons has always provided a launching pad for the young cricket stars to showcase their talents and get recognition to play Club Cricket and later step into the national arena.
There have been so many, from these two institutions who have gone on to gain national recognition and brought honour to Sri Lanka
If we were to mention a few of them, who have achieved significant milestones during the past few decades – Nalanda’s Bandula Warnapura holds the unique honour of being Sri Lanka’s first Test Cricket Captain.
Arjuna Ranatunga of Ananda was the captain of the World Cup Winning Sri Lanka team in 1996 and that victorious team comprised of three Nalandians Roshan Mahanama, Asanka Gurusinghe and Kumar Dharmasena Kumar Dharmasena later became the only player to have played in a world cup final and to have later umpired a world cup final, being a member of ICC’s elite panel of umpires.
Incidentally Arjuna Ranatunga is the only cricketer to have played in the inaugural Test and the 100th Test match of his country.
The first half century, the first century and the first double century for Sri Lanka in Tests were all scored by Anandians, Arjuna Ranatunga, Sidath Wettimuni and Brendon Kuruppu being the three players.
Roshan Mahanama of Nalanda who later became an elite member of the ICC’s panel of match referees, held the highest partnership for any wicket in Tests history, 576 runs with Sanath Jayasuriya against India which was later bettered by Mahela Jayawardena who together with Kumar Sangakkara put up a partnership of 624 runs against South Africa Thus, two Nalandians have the honour of being part of the world's all time highest and second highest partnerships in Test Cricket.
Anura Ranasinghe of Nalanda has the honour of being the first schoolboy cricketer to have played in the inaugural world cup one day tournament.
Mahela Jayawardena holds the record for the highest individual score in a Test match by a Sri Lankan and the highest in the world for a right-handed batsman, with his knock of 374 runs against South Africa.
He is the first Sri Lankan to have scored 10000 runs in Test Cricket (ninth in the world) and is also the third Sri Lankan to be inducted into ICC’s Hall of Fame, (in 2021) after Muttiah Muralidaran and Kumar Sangakkara, the fourth being Aravinda de Silva.
Mahela holds the unique record of being the only player to have scored a hundred in both a World Cup final and a World Cup semi-final and is the first Sri Lankan batsman to have scored a century in a T20 world cup match.
Anandian Dinesh Chandimal is the first Sri Lankan batsman to score twin fifties in his Test debut (2011) and is also the first Sri Lankan batsman to score a Test double century against Australia, 206 not out in July 2022.
There have been six players, Arjuna Ranatunga, Marvan Atapattu and Dinesh Chandinal from Ananda and Bandula Warnapura, Roshan Mahanama and Mahela Jayawardena from Nalanda, who have captained Sri Lanka in Tests, One Day Internationals and T20 matches.