Another uncut gem from Moratuwa

Rex Clementine in Galle

Surrey loves Sanga. The whole of England loves him. How else would he have gone on to become the first non-British President of MCC? The former Sri Lankan skipper having finished his Test career in 2015 moved to the English county circuit and broke record after record emerging as the leading run scorer for several seasons. Not since the days of Ken Barrington, The Oval had witnessed such batting feats. Of course, when you invest on Sanga the batsman, you also get a good mentor for young players.

Despite all his achievements for Surrey, one record kept eluding the great man. Aravinda de Silva in his fabulous County Season in 1995 had scored 255 runs for Kent against Derbyshire. That remained the highest individual score by a Sri Lankan in England. Last year it fell. The man who broke it was a little heard of 22-year-old by the name of Nishan Madushka Fernando.

In England last year, Madushka scored 269 runs against Kent representing Sri Lanka Development Squad and Aravinda’s record that had stood for 27 years was gone. Breaking Aravinda’s feats is not for the fainthearted. You knew there was something special about Madushka at that point.

The nation is blessed with several cricketing talents from Moratuwa. Prince of Wales and St. Sebastian’s had produced most of these talents but the lesser affluent Moratu Vidyalaya had produced some solid players too.

In the old days, there was Lucky Rogers. Then there was Bernard Perera, Sarath Fernando, and Chandana Mahesh. More recently Ajantha Mendis came through and now we have Madushka.

Moratu Vidyalaya is the only school in Sri Lanka to have produced men’s and women’s international cricketers. Inoshi Fernando featured for the women’s team in recent years. All these are products of one of the best school cricket coaches in the country Prasanna Dissanayake.

Madushka has come up in life amidst many hardships. His father was a good softball player and was the sole breadwinner in the family. Many were the challenges in the early days struggling to make ends meet as is the case with most daily wage earners. Covid and then the economic crisis delivered crushing blows to the family but that didn’t stop Madushka from scoring big runs whatever the team he represented.

He was prolific in domestic cricket for Ragama and when picked for Sri Lanka ‘A’ to face England Lions early this year he scored a double hundred and a hundred earning him a place with the senior side for the tour of New Zealand.

As the selectors finally lost patience with Niroshan Dickwella, 54 Tests and no hundreds, they backed Madushka to make his debut in Wellington. It was a tough outing as mostly the case in New Zealand. But Ireland proved to be lighter opponents as he became the 14th Sri Lankan to score a double hundred in Test match cricket and the second youngest since Mahela Jayawardene.

“Madushka is very watchful in the first half-hour. He is quiet, composed man and he is in no rush for runs earlier on which is a good feature of a long-format player. He waits for loose balls. If he gets to a 50, he will try and push for a hundred and if he gets to three figures, you never know where he will stop,” Prasanna his school coach told Sunday Island.

We have seen many young talents breaking into the senior side with a lot of promise but failing on the wayside. But in recent years thankfully we have had some good young players who have good heads on their shoulders like Charith Asalanka, Pathum Nissanka and Kamindu Mendis. Fans will be hoping that Madushka makes it big and delivers the big runs in Test match cricket like he has done with all the development teams.