Right-arm medium fast-bowler from Thurstan College, Charana Nanayakkara needed just 29 deliveries to pick up 8 Josephian wickets last Thursday in one of the best swing-bowling spells from a schoolboy cricketer in the recent past.
18-year old Nanayakkara’s extraordinary figures of 8 for 15 rocked the Josephian batting as they succumbed to their equal lowest score in the history of St. Joseph’s College cricket, 23 runs.
Nanayakkara was brought into the attack as the first-change bowler and he struck in the 5th ball of his spell with an in-swinging delivery which caught the left-handed Josephian opening batsman Nipun Sumanasinghe plumb in front. In the very first ball of his second over, right-hander Thashan Perera played down the wrong line and missed a delivery to be trapped right in front and two balls later, the late outswing of Nanayakkara caught the outside edge of Dineth Madurawala.
Wicket-keeper batsman Shewon Fonseka played across the line, top-edged and gave a simple catch to Nanayakkara in the third ball of his 3rd over. Revan Kelly missed out on a full toss as he was castled in the very next ball.
Pahan Perera, Havin Perera and Ruchira Ekanayake were unable to counter the swing generated by Nanayakkara as they too were marked as LBW b Nanayakkara on the score-sheet.
According to certain reports, Nanayakkara’s bowling feat is the best by a Thurstanite in U19 cricket. He went onto bag three more wickets in the second innings to end up with 11 wickets for the match and caught everyone by surprise.
“I was just concentrating on bowling to the right line and length; I generated a lot of swing with my natural ability to move the ball that day which clearly helped me. I was over the moon after that spell of bowling.” Nanayakkara said exclusively to ThePapare.com.
Charana Nanayakkara, son of former Thurstan College captain in 1989, Gamini Nanayakkara, was put on the path to cricket from a young age. At the tender age of 7, Charana was enrolled to the NCC Cricket Academy to learn the ABC’s of Cricket.
He was the U13 vice-captain in 2010 and has had the opportunity to lead Thurstan College in the U15, U17 and U19 age categories. He led the Thurstan College first XI cricket team in 2015/16 and toured Bangladesh with the Sri Lanka U19 cricket team for the ICC U19 Cricket World Cup 2016 where he played only one game with minimal success.
“It was a really good experience and I was truly honoured to represent my country. I got the opportunity to play only one game but I was always keen on giving my best to the team.” Nanayakkara stated on his maiden U19 tour to Bangladesh.
Known to be a hard-hitting batting all-rounder, Nanayakkara was drafted into the 1st XI team in the 2011/12 season under the captaincy of Sajeewa Salgado in a match against St. Sebastian’s College, Moratuwa. He went on to play the annual one-day encounter and T20 encounter against their arch-rivals, Isipathana College in the same year.
In the following seasons, under Ramindu Kumarasinghe, Kavindu Kulasekara and Thimira Jayasinghe, Nanayakkara scored over 400, 500 and 600 runs respectively. In the 2014/15 season, Nanayakkara had his previous best bowling performance of 7 for 19 against Dharmapala College, Pannipitiya.
Nananayakkara was superb with the bat scoring over 800 runs last season while leading his alma mater and in the process, hammered three centuries against Wesley College, Dharmapala College and St. Sebastian’s College, Moratuwa.
“The best batting knock was against St. Sebastian’s when I smashed 128 in just 42 balls. I will never forget that knock. I was hitting the ball really well that day.” Nanayakkara described his best batting performance.
Playing his sixth and final year at Thurstan College, Nanayakkara has set his eyes on becoming the ‘Best All-rounder’ at the end of 2016/17 season and win the ‘Battle of the Brothers’ against Isipathana College next year.
He concentrates more on his batting during practices and loves to be innovative, saying,“I usually bat for more than an hour at training. I also try out a few new innovative strokes at the net, reverse-sweeps, switch-hits, paddle sweeps and etc.”
Having already represented Old Thurstanites Sports Club in the SLC U23 tournament and the Donovan and Andree Trophy, Nanayakkara believes he can be a game changer for Sri Lanka in the limited-overs format in the future, “I love T20 cricket and ODI cricket. My target is to be limited-overs specialist for Sri Lanka one day. If I continue to work hard, I think I can achieve my targets.” He said.
He has managed to maintain a good balance between sports and studies. He always passes his exams with good grades and awaits results for the G.C.E AL/s examination which he sat in August this year and is currently following an English course at British Council.
He finished off by thanking everyone who supported him right throughout his cricketing journey, “I want to thank my parents, all my friends, all the coaches, masters in charge who have helped me at Thurstan College and every coach at Sri Lanka Cricket. I want to specially remember all my team mates from U13 and U19 for helping me out in every step of my career.” Nanayakkara said.
We thank Charana for his valuable time and wish him all the very best for his future endeavors.
