All rounder Gayana excels for Maliyadeva
Maliyadeva College Kurunegala all rounder and vice captain Gayana Weerasinghe performed well during the 2022/23 inter school Cricket season by making over 1500 runs and also capturing over 50 wickets in all formats of the game. He was among the few players who scored 1000 or more runs during the season.
He began the season by representing his alma mater Maliyadeva College Kurunegala in the All Island Inter school under 19 division I Limited overs Cricket tournament with great success. In nine matches he posted 246 runs (7 innings) with one century and one fifty and also captured 14 wickets with his medium pace bowling. His classic knock of 102 against Wesley College
Colombo was a memorable one and he was among the list of few centurions of the short format of the game this season. He also posted 56 against S Thomas Mount Lavinia and his best bowling figures were 3/35 vs Gurukula M.V and 3/40 vs St Anthony’s Katugastota.
This promising youngster has shown his all round capabilities also during the All Island Inter school 19 Division I Two day cricket matches by scoring 1157 runs and capturing 37 wickets from 16 matches. Right handed middle order batsman Weerasinghe made three superb hundreds against Royal Colombo (135*), Nalanda Colombo (120*), and Mahinda Galle (149) and nine other half centuries. His fifties were 55 vs Dharmasoka, 61* vs Royal colombo (2 nd innings ) ,60 vs Trinity Kandy, 51 vs St Anthony’s Katugastota, 63 Thurstan , 66 vs Dharmaraja Kandy63 vs Prince of Wales Moratuwa, 82 vs St Joseph’s Colombo and 65 vs Trinity Kandy (Two day tournament semi-final). He hit 3 hundreds and nine fifties during the season with 149 vs Mahinda Galle as his best and averaged a healthy 52.59 runs per innings.
The lanky medium pacer bowled very well during the season and bagged 37 wickets with six 4 wicket hauls and 6/35 against home town rivals St Anne’s Kurunegala as his best in the Battle of the Rocks big match in Welegedara Stadium in Kurunegala. His other notable figures were 4/76 vs Royal, 4/68 vs S Thomas Mount Lavinia, 4/18 vs Nalanda College, 4/81 vs Mahinda College and 4/51 vs St Joseph’s College. in both inter school’ tournaments this season he posted 1403 runs with four hundreds and 10 fifties and also bagged 51 wickets with his medium pace deliveries.
In the ‘Battle of the Rocks’ two day encounter against home town rivals St Anne’s Kurunegala he captured a career best 6/35 to restrict opponents for a small total and was adjudged best bowler in the big match for his remarkable feat in front of his home fans.In the following day,
he made another fighting knock of 41 against the same opposition in the one day encounter to gave a superb win for his alma mater and was adjudged player of the match
With these performances he was selected for Kurunegala Zone II in the Sri Lanka Cricket under 19 Inter District Tournament and North Western Province in the Inter Provincial Under 19 Youth League tournaments.