Isn’t it incredible that Moratuwa keeps producing cricketing talents like Malwana produces tastiest rambutans season after season.
Usually, the two schools that we associate with cricketing talents from Moratuwa are St. Sebastian’s and Prince of Wales. But Moratu Vidyalaya has made its own contributions to our cricket producing players of the caliber of Ajantha Mendis, Lucky Rogers, Bernard Perera, Sarath Fernando and Chandana Mahesh. The latest sensation is Nishan Madushka, the 14th Sri Lankan player to make a double hundred in Test match cricket.
Madushka’s is yet another story of from rags to riches as he made his way up from the humblest of beginnings facing many financial hardships with his father, the sole bread winner in the household being a daily wage earner. Now that he has made it big, everyone will be hoping that he remains grounded and keeps working hard towards establishing himself in the side without losing his way. Many are such talents we have seen going astray over the years.
On Thursday, Madushka became the second youngest Sri Lankan to score a double hundred after Mahela Jayawardene and second batter to convert a maiden hundred into a double hundred after Brendon Kuruppu.
Madushka graduated with flying colours from under-13 to under-19 captaining each side at Moratu Vidyalaya. His father was a good softball player and he was coached by Prasanna Dissanayake, one of the finest coaches in the school circuit. Prasanna was also the school coach of Ajantha Mendis.
Incidentally, Moratu Vidyalaya is the only school in Sri Lanka to have produced men’s and women’s international cricketers with Inoshi Fernando featuring heavily in the women’s side in recent years.
Having scored over 1000 runs season after season, Madushka was an automatic choice for the ICC Under-19 World Cup where he excelled.
Madushka’s sheer weight of runs in domestic cricket earned him a place in Sri Lanka Development Squad that toured England last year. There he broke a Sri Lankan record that had stood for 27 years.
Aravinda de Silva during his stellar season with English county Kent had scored 255 against Derbyshire and that was the highest score by a Sri Lankan in UK. Madushka broke it when he made 269 against Kent pushing his cause further.
Then early this year, he was given a break against England Lions and a hundred and double hundred confirmed his insatiable appetite for big runs. That earned him a business class ticket to New Zealand as Sri Lanka travelled for the two match Test series.
In Wellington, the national cricket team finally ended the Niroshan Dickwella experiment that had lasted for 54 Test matches. Dickwella had not made a hundred in all those games and bit of sloppy keeping behind the stumps ensured his exit. In came Madushka keeping wickets and batting in the lower middle order. Multi skilled players are always handy but soon the selectors realized that he will be better off as a top order batter where he had excelled most.
In the first Test, there was a run fest but Madushka missed out. In the second game, he made it count with his double hundred cementing his place in the side.
Madushka’s strengths are that he cuts, pulls and drives well. He is a bit of a quiet character and in the first half hour, he doesn’t search for runs, the hallmark of a good opening batsman.
“If he scores a half-century, he is determined to get a hundred. If gets to a hundred, you never know where he will end up. He is very organized and pretty solid with his defense,” his school coach Prasanna who has now moved onto Lyceum, Panadura from Moratu Vidyalaya said.
Runs against an opponent like Ireland, isn’t the best yardstick to measure a player. So bigger challenges will come his way when Pakistan will be in Galle in July this year. The good thing is both Pakistan Tests will be played in Galle and Madushka should be pleased with that.
But what we have seen from his brief career so far be it in domestic cricket or against England Lions or in English conditions with the Development Squad, he has got the temperament to succeed against all kinds of conditions and attacks.
It will be interesting to see what the selectors will do when Pathum Nissanka is medically cleared to play the longer format of the game. Anyway these are good headaches to have.
Kudos to Dimuth Karunaratne as well for handling these young players well. He has featured for Sri Lanka with several opening batters in his decade long career. You can see him guiding young Madushka and there can not be a better mentor than the Sri Lankan skipper.
There’s a lot of support for the 23-year-old from the coaching staff and seniors as he made the headlines in Galle. With Dimuth in the twilight of his career it is good to see several young players putting up their hands to stake claims to slots in the Test side. Dimuth, Mathews and Chandimal will go around the same time and we need a young brigade to take over the Test side.
