All the preparations have been made to hold the 94th Battle of the Maroons, the most prominent annual school cricket encounter between Ananda College and Nalanda College at the SSC Grounds on March 2nd and 3rd.
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. The new logo was launched at the press conference held on 10th of January 2024.
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 captain Bandula Warnapura (Nalanda) and the skipper of the 1996 World Cup winning team Arjuna Ranatunga (Ananda) are among the finest players gifted to the nation from these two schools.
Beside top players such as Roshan Mahanama, Asanka Gurusinghe, Kumar Dharmasena and former cricket skippers Marvan Atapattu and Mahela Jayawardene are among the star players produced by these two schools.
It was old Anandians’ Arjuna Ranatunga, Sidath Wettimuny, and Brendon Kuruppu who respectively scored the first Test half-century, first Test century and as well as first Test double century for Sri Lanka.
Another significant feature is that five players from these two schools represented the first Sri Lanka Test team; they are Arjuna Ranatunga, Sidath Wettimuny, Ajith de Silva from Ananda College and Bandura Warnapura and Lalith Kaluperuma from Nalanda College.
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. Among them are Sidath Wettimuny, Arjuna Ranatunga, Sanjeewa Ranatunga, Marvan Atapattu, Dulip Samaraweera, Avishka Gunawardene, Thilan Samaraweera, Dhammika Ranatunga, Brendon Kuruppu, Chandika Hathurusinghe and Dinesh Chandimal from Ananda College.
From Nalanda College, Bandula Warnapura, Anura Ranasinghe, Roshan Mahanama, Asanka Gurusinghe, Gamini Wickramasinghe, Kumar Dharmasena, Mahela Jayawardene, Chamara Dunusinghe, Shantha Kalavitigoda, Ishara Amarasinghe.
The unique feature of these players is that they have shown their talents at the Ananda-Nalanda big match before displaying their excellence at the international matches.
Out of the 93 matches played so far, Ananda College has won 12 matches while Nalanda College has won seven matches.
The organizing 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).
