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Message: <blockquote data-quote="sl_play_boy" data-source="post: 7048029" data-attributes="member: 85539">Kurunegala’s Big Match on the rocks?By Samiddha RathnayakeAfter the gloomy end to their one-day encounter, St. Anne’s are said to be preparing to wind up their 29-year-old big match relationship with Maliyadeva, The Nation reliably learns. The discussions are currently underway at St Anne’s to make the decision an official one.The drastic decision was followed after the unpleasant incident that occurred at this year’s one-day encounter. It was the 16th occasion that the two teams met each other under the one-day tag and St. Annes were on the verge of clinching the win for the third consecutive year. Batting first St Anne’s got 157 and Maliyadeva were tottering on 97/9 at the end of 38 overs. Unfortunately umpires had to call off the game due to the invasion of Maliyadeva supporters and ultimately the winners were decided on the parabola system (faster run rate).***But when the awards presentation started the organisers found that a group of Maliyadeva supporters had broken the winning trophy into pieces.It wasn’t the end. Annites had worse to follow when they got back to their school. “The College walls were covered with filthy obscene graffiti and we are still doing the repairs” said the master in charge for cricket at St. Anne’s, Chandrasiri Kariyawasam. “There had been fights in the past, but this was the worst of all. Those intruders have destroyed our college,” he further added in disgust.Kariyawasam said that their principal, Brother Denzil Mendiz is quite determined not to have a big match next year after this incident. “He has all the reasons in the world to take that sort of decision. Even the old boys are also backing him on this. There’s no point in having a two-day match and a one-day once a year if you have to repair the college for the rest of the year,” he remarked.When contacted Shirantha Bandaranayake, master in charge for cricket at Maliyadeva said that it was truly an unpleasant incident to face by any school, but he was unaware of such a move by St. Anne’s to discontinue the matches. “What I can say is that they haven’t informed us yet of such a decision,” he said.The big match was first played in 1959, Devans have won four matches so far while the Annites have never won. Both teams have won seven matches each, in the limited over encounter which started in 1992 while on two occasions the teams shared the trophy. Both schools have even produced several Test players such as Ranjth Madurasinghe, Eric Upashantha, Rangana Herath from Maliyadeva and Lanka de Silva from St Anne’s.</blockquote>

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