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Cricket has been the top sport of the school. Over the last past two decades Nalanda produced the best cricket talents among the school in Sri Lanka. Even in late twenties stalwarts like P.M. Jayathilake, C.R.B. BoB. Bogollagama, B.S. Perera always excelled in school cricket. The first three Sri Lankan cricketers produced by Nalanda were Stanley Jayasinghe (who was the first Nalandian to play county cricket in UK), Carl Obeysekara, and Ashely de Silva in fifties. Nalanda also had the golden opportunity to produce Sri Lanka's first test cricket captain, Bandula Warnapura. The first XI cricket, and junior level cricket teams have always been on top among the schools in almost every cricket season. The latest is that Nalanda First XI cricket team of 1996 won both the inter-school league tournament, and the Coco-cola limited over tournament. Following are some of the latest achievements of the school in Cricket. The school team plays an annual Big Match with Ananda from 1925.

History

Nalanda 1st XI cricket team won the Inter-school cricket tournament in 1996.
Nalanda 1st XI cricket team won the Cola-cola inter-school cricket tournament for three consecutive years; 1994 (Captain Achintha Illukkumbura), 1995 (Captain Mahela Jayawardene), and 1996 joint champs (Captain Tharanga Dhammika).
The Sri Lankan cricket team who won the World Cup'96 comprised 3 players from Nalanda (the highest from any school) : Roshan Mahanama, Asanka Gurusinha, and Kumara Dharmasena.
Mahela Jayawardane has been selected to represent Sri Lanka "A" team against West Indies and was a member of the Hong Kong Six "a" side tournament. Mahela Jayawardena is the latest Nalandian test star who scored 66 in his debut against India, where Sri Lanka cricket team established the record of scoring highest test total in the history of test cricket, 952 for 8 wickets. Mahela was in the crease when Sri Lanka team surpassed the previous highest total of 903. Roshan Mahanama scored 225 in the same test match and established a world test record with Sanath Jayasuriya for the highest partnership for any wicket (576 runs).
Shantha Kalavitigoda established the new batting record for Ananda-Nalanda big match in 1997 by scoring 149 not out. Roshan Mahanama held the previous highest score of 145 not not in 1984 big match. Shantha Kalawitigoda later represented Sri Lanka Board President's XI during 1997 too.
Nalanda team of 1996 has been selected as the best team in the Bata Observer schoolboy cricketer competition with Mahela Jayawardana as the best batsman and Tharanga Dhammika as the best captain.
Nalanda cricket team 1989 (Captain Ramesh de Silva) created a record in school cricket by winning 9 matches in the season. They also became the best team of the year. Further Nalanda cricket team became the best team in few more times in 90's.
Presently Nalanda has the credit of producing highest number of test cricketers (12) for Sri Lanka after Sri Lanka gained the test status in 1982.
The best schoolboy cricketer award has been won by Anura Ranasinghe (1974-75), Yohan Gunasekara (1976), Roshan Mahanama (1983,84), Asanka Gurusinha (1985), Kumara Dharmasena (1989) during the last two decades. Chaminda Handunhettige (1988), and Mahela Jayawardene (1994) won the runner-up titles.
The junior level teams won the all-island titles in many occasions, and in year 1994 where both U13 and U17 became champions, and U15 became runners-up.

Battle of the Maroons