Wesley College and St. Joseph’s College will inaugurate the Bryan Claessen-Arthur Hekal Memorial Trophy at the Centenary encounter between the schools to be played at Campbell Park on 6th and 7th of January 2017.
Of the 99 games played between the two teams thus far, the Josephians have won 35 encounters while Wesley have come out on top on 10 occasions; the rest of the games have ended in draws. St. Joseph’s won last year’s fixture under the leadership of Sanduruwan Rodrigo, while Wesley’s last win in the fixture dates back to the year 1969 under the captaincy of Amresh Rajaratanam.
St. Joseph’s will be led by left-arm spinner Harin Cooray while in-form Josephian batsman Dineth Madurawala, with 3 centuries to his name this season, will be a key player for the boys from Darley road. Unfortunately, the Josephians will miss the services of youth players Revan Kelly and Jehan Daniel who are on national duty.
Wesley will be captained by Shamod Athulathmudali this season. Jason De Silva, Movin Subasinghe and Shenal Dangalle are a few names to watch out for in the Wesley line up. Jason has amassed a total of 200+ runs in 5 games this season while Movin, the highest run scorer for the Campbell Park lads has more than 275 runs to his name. From a bowling prospective, the right arm seamer has 18 wickets under his belt and managed an 8-for against St. Benadict’s a few weeks ago.
Taking a look back in history, the men in whose memory the trophy has been named, Bryan Claessen and Arthur Hakel, had illustrious careers for their respective teams.
Leg-spinner Claessen captained the Wesley College cricket team in 1953. Under his leadership Wesley were unbeaten, having registered victories against St. Joseph’s, Royal, Kingswood, Prince of Wales and Richmond. Bryan notched up 4 centuries with 157 not out, which came against Kingswood College, Kandy, being his highest score. His best bowling performance was 9 for 37 against Zahira College, Colombo. Bryan migrated to Australia in 1957, and secured several awards in cricket. He will be remembered as the first Sri Lankan to be elected President of a South Australian District Cricket Club.
Hakel, on the other hand, was a multi-talented sportsman, representing St. Joseph’s College in Cricket, Athletics and Soccer. He played cricket under the captaincy of Lalith de S. Wijeyeratne in 1968, and Brian Obeyesekere in 1969, and opened the bowling during this time. He achieved a hat-trick as an opening bowler against Richmond College and was known as ‘hat-trick Hakel’ by his teammates. Arthur was never a batsman, however, he valued his wicket and would not throw it away. On the field he was one of the quickest throwers of the ball, as he was a javelin thrower and held the schools’ javelin record for some time. After leaving school he represented the Colombo Cricket Club.
