All the preparations have been made to hold the 94th Battle of the Maroons, between Ananda College and Nalanda College at the S.S.C grounds on 2 and 3 March.
The most significant feature of this year's encounter is the relaunch of the Battle of the Maroons official logo after a period of 15 years.
This historic and unique cricket battle is played between the country's two premier Buddhist schools which have gone into the records of the history for producing the highest number of international and national level cricket players for Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka's first test cricket skipper Bandula Warnapura (Nalanda College) and the skipper of the 1996 world cup winning team Arjuna Ranathunga (Ananda College) are among the finest players gifted to the nation from these two schools.
Besides, top players such as Roshan Mahanama, Asanka Gurusinghe, Kumar Dharmasena, and former cricket skippers Mavan Atapattu and Mahela Jayawardena are among the star players produced by these two schools.
It was old Anandians' Arjuna Ranathunga, Sidath Wettamuni, and Brendon Kuruppu who respectively scored the first test half-century, first test century, as well as the first test double-century for Sri Lanka.
Ananda College was founded on 1 November 1886 at 61, Maliban Street, Colombo Fort, with 37 students. The first principal was C. W. Leadbeater. The school was taken to Prince Street in 1889 and later in 1895, it was shifted to the present place in Maradana when A. E. Buultjens was principal of the school. The school was re-named “Ananda College”, after Buddha's chief disciple Arahant Ananda.
Nalanda College was established in 1925 as an offshoot of Ananda College and at the time, its principal was P. De S. Kularatne. Later on, the 39th anniversary of the Ananda College in 1925, this school was registered by P. De S. Kularatne as a separate government school.
In 1924 Ananda College first played a friendly cricket match with Nalanda College. The move to introduce the big-match concept in a manner that suits our country was taken in 1924. The big match concept came with the missionary schools and under the new moves in 1924, steps were taken to introduce the big match concept among the Buddhist schools in a manner more suitable to our country. That happened exactly 100 years ago.
The Ananda-Nalanda big match officially began in 1926. These two schools have produced greatest cricketers for the national cricket team who have become household names in Sri Lanka over the decades.
Out of the 93 matches played so far, Ananda College has won 12 matches while Nalanda College has won seven matches.
The organising committee of the 94th Battle of the Maroons is co-chaired by Upali Dharmadasa (Ananda College) and Sri Lanka's 15th Air force Commander Gagan Bulathsinhala (Nalanda College).