RICHMOND HAS THE EDGE OVER RIVALS MAHINDA
The town of Galle will be of carnival atmosphere when two of the leading cricket playing schools Richmond and Mahinda will come onto the cricket field when they clash in their annual 119th Battle of the Lovers, popularly known as the “Lovers Quarell” scheduled to be played on March 15 and 16 at the Galle International Stadium.
It’s going to be an interesting tussle as the two teams will be led by two players Malsha Tharupathi of Richmond and Dinura Kalupahana of Mahinda who represented the Sri Lanka U19 team with success at the recently concluded ICC U19 World Cup which was held in South Africa.
Tharupathi in fact was the deputy skipper of the Sri Lanka U19 and Kalupahana was the most successful of the two at the ICC U19 World Cup and the duo were unable to represent the school side due their various national commitments and for sure the duo are going to be the cynosure of all eyes over the two days.
Looking back at the performances of the two sides in the ongoing Under 19 interschool cricket season Richmond have been consistent while Mahinda has had fluctuated fortunes, so the scale is in favour of Richmond who will have the edge.
The two sides apart from their captains possess talented players with Richmond banking on their top scorers of the season Chehan Subasinghe and Thamindu Pradeeptha who both have crossed the 500 runs mark with Nikil Jayaweera, Seneth Sisan, Shehan de Zoysa, Sharon Abishek and Kaveesha Induwara to name a few.
The bowling will revolve around Sharon Abishek who is their top wicket taker with over 60 wickets, Kaveesha Induwara and skipper Tharupathi with support expected from Sihath Ramanayake and Malith de Silva.
Mahinda College will bank on Pramesh Madubashana their top scorer deputy skipper Tharusha Dilshan who both have made over 500 runs along with skipper Kalupahana, Deneth Kaushalya and Senuka Dangamuwa to bolster the score.
The bowling will be spearheaded by Kaveen Rukshan who has taken over 60 scalps inclusive of six, five wicket hauls and has a match bag of 17 wickets against St. Sylvester’s and will be looking for support from Senuka Dangamuwa and Arosha Udayanga who together taken 60 wickets between them.
However it has been a long time since Mahinda have been able to secure an outright win with their last being in the year 2008 when the side was led by Rajith Priyanjan and Richmond’s last win was in the year 2019 under the captaincy of Thaveesha Abishek which saw them take the series lead win to 24 against to Mahinda’s 23.
Mahinda holds two records of the series with P.H.K.H. Ranasinghe’s knock of 162 made in 1972 being the best individual knock of the series and in the bowling Somasiri Ambawatta has the unique record of taking all the ten wickets for just 44 runs which was achieved in the year 1953 while R.M.M. de Silva of Richmond hold the best bowling returns of 15 for 15 which he achieved in 1922.