Shenal Boteju -- a player placing team over self
The opening batsman for St. Peter’s College, Bambalapitiya, Shenal Botejua, having won twin awards at their 87th Battle of the Saints, called on all schoolboys to play for the school and not to bank on individual goals.
“Play for the school. Not for captaincy or vice captaincy, just play for school. If you play for school, you will get everything you want. That is the message I have for my youngsters. I’m a team player, who wants to win it for the team every time. I always play for my alma mater,” he said, urging them to play collectively.
One such award he won was that of, the best batsman for scoring 62, the top-scorer of the entire encounter, worked off last week at the SSC grounds. However, the boys from Bambalapitiya were outplayed by their counterparts, St. Joseph’s College, as they failed to avert the follow-on and the match was drawn when they were on 82 for 2.
“I feel really good, because I got the best batsman award. But the feeling is not that great because we were down in the match, so it doesn’t feel that great. But I feel that my individual performance was good,” said the southpaw.
In his third-year for his college, the 19-year-old, who also bagged the award for the best fielder, admitted it was not their day and credited his counterparts for coming really well.
“My main target was to bat out the entire 60 overs. We knew we couldn’t win the match; hence I was trying to get rid of the follow-on. I faced 149 balls to score 62 runs, aided by four boundaries. My main target was to avoid the follow-on, though I got out,” he said.
“First of all, I was glad to represent my school at a big match. Playing a big match in this pandemic is a great thing. In my heart it says it’s a big match. The big match feeling is always there,” he recalled.
Boteju, with nearly 1000 runs in his schooling career, is a boy with a different and unconventional view. Realising he can’t make it to the Under-19, he is now working on his final destination of national level and looking to go professional in the sport.
“My next target is to have a professional career. I can’t represent Under-19 now, hence, I want to be a professional cricketer.”
Explaining as to what went wrong, as his team’s both the totals were not in sight of Joes 261, Boteju blamed application and dearth of match practices with the pandemic making matters worse.
“I think it’s the lack of application and match practices. We started practicing two months ago. When we played our big match last year, we played around 15 to 16 matches in the run up to it. We get a lot of match experience. This year, after six months, we played only a handful of matches before the big match.”
Boteju has already got a feel of playing for a club, the Kandy Customs, in its Under-23 side. During his ongoing school colours, he had hit a 50 against Lankan Cricket Club and that had prompted a call from inviting him to join him. At the same time, though, he also revealed, his dream is to join the SSC.