Nineteen year old, Kesara Nuragoda, a Grade Thirteen student of Dharmaraja College, Kandy in the Commerce stream is an up- and-coming Cricketer of the 1st Eleven Cricket team of the School as a right hand batsman and right arm off spinner. Kesara started his cricket career in the School Cricket Academy under the coaching of Harold Ranasinghe and Hasitha Thilakaratne in the year 2014 and played under Thushan Herath in the same year at the under thirteen Division one,at the All Island Schools Cricket tournament. He bagged Twenty five wickets in Seven matches, his best being bagging four wickets for four runs against Bandarawela Central as an off spinner. After playing for two years in the Under thirteen Cricket team he was promoted to the Under 15 cricket team and he played under the Captaincy of Thushan Herath once again and his Cricket coaches were HasithaThilakaratne and Chalitha Dissanayake. According to him during his Under 15 Cricket Career he bagged thirty five wickets in Ten matches, the best being Eight wickets for Twelve runs against Kurunduwatte Royal College.
Kesara was selected to the Kandy District (Central) Cricket team under the Captaincy of Abhishek Anandakumar of Trinity College and according to him he has bagged three wickets for six runs for Kandy Central team against Kandy Upper under 15 side.
After that he joined the Under 17 side of the School under the coaching of Upesh Wijesiri, Harsha Edirisinghe and Buddhika Madushantha. He said that he has bagged Twenty wickets in six matches, the best being bagging five wickets for two runs in Ten overs against KalutaraVidyalaya in the year 2015. According to him,Kesara was selected to the 1st XI Cricket Squad in 2019 under Sachintha Senanayake and in 2020 under Dulaj Bandara and in 2021 under Upendra Warnakulasuriya.
Kesara was involved in athletics too and he ran in the School Annual Road Race in 2017/2018 and finished among the first twenty runners. As he says he was the Captain of the Champion Ananda House Cricket team in 2019 beating Mahinda House in the finals at Inter House Cricket Tournament. According to him, his father, Neville Nuragoda was a fine Soccer player of the School and his uncle L.P. Nuragoda was a member of the Champion 4 x 400 Relay team in the school in which the writer was also a member along with MahindaWadugodapitiya and Ananda Jayasundara which won many Relay events in the mid-sixties
Kesara’s intention is to improve his Cricket to be selected to the National team and he is thankful to all his coaches as well as his father for encouraging him to go forward in Cricket.