Sri Lanka schools gear up for sixes tournament
Saadi Taufeeq previews the Glucofit Cricket Sixes tournament 2009-10
Sa'adi Thawfeeq
18-Sep-2009

The Glucofit Sixes trophy on display at the launch • ESPNcricinfo Ltd
The Schools Cricket Sixes conducted by the Old Wesleyites Sports Club is the
only one of its kind and undoubtedly has proved to be a popular event in the
schools cricket calendar that all schools look forward to, as the
curtain-raiser for the start of a new season.
The concept to hold a tournament of this nature for schools came from an Old
Wesleyite, Eric Gauder, in the early nineties to bring about comradeship
amongst schoolboy cricketers, for apart from meeting each other at regular
school fixtures, they hardly continued the friendship thereafter. The whole
idea was to get schools involved at one central venue.
It also enabled less-privileged schools to come to Colombo and play with top-ranking city schools, an opportunity most did not have at the time.
With the help of other past Wesley stalwarts like LR 'Lucky' Goonetillake,
Ivor Maharoof and Navin de Silva to name a few, the idea got off the ground
in 1993 when the first tournament was held at the Wesley College grounds at
Campbell Park where 23 schools competed over two days and Royal College ended the first winners.
At that time, and even today, the Schools Cricket Sixes is the only one of its
kind for schoolboy cricketers and the tournament caught on very well. Today, there are 36 participants, nine of which are district teams, which proves the popularity of the tournament. The organisers have been wise to get the Sri Lanka Schools Cricket Association (SLSCA), the parent body for schools cricket in the country involved and they are making use of their district coaches to pick teams from the various districts.
The success of the tournament, according to Gauder, is because of the
punctuality with which the matches are conducted. "Every year the organising
committee has made it a point to work off the matches with clockwork
precision. It has been run like a well-oiled machine," said Gauder, who
opened batting for Wesley in 1965 and 1966 and is presently an international
cricket commentator who runs a sports event management company of his own.
"The tournament has become so popular that schools sometimes phone us to
find out the dates before they schedule their inter-school fixtures," Gauder said. "There
have been instances where some schools have even changed dates of school
fixtures to play in the tournament."
The participants are by invitation and the criteria used is the previous
season's performances.
Over the years the tournament has been popularised by live television
coverage, which was introduced in the fourth year, and still continues. This
has actually been a great boon to the sponsors of the tournament initially
Elephant House who sponsored it for the Lemonade trophy for 15 years and
since last year replaced by Munchee Glucofit trophy offered by Ceylon
Biscuits Ltd. Throughout, the tournament has been restricted to 23 teams and
played over two days with the exception of Wesley College's 125th
anniversary, when it was played over three days with 36 teams. Since the arrival of the new sponsors, the tournament has expanded to 36 teams and is played over
three days. The 2009 tournament will see the introduction of the free-hit
for bowling a front-foot no-ball.
The tournament has been graced by a few top national cricketers, like Mahela Jayawardene, who was the first batsman to score a fifty while representing
Nalanda College. Sri Lanka cricketer left-arm fast bowler Nuwan
Zoysa has the dubious distinction of bowling the most number of wides in the tournament, while playing for Isipathana MV.