ZAHIRA, DSS PLAY FOR AILING SPORTSMAN

The two captains Luqman Nadeem (left) of Zahira and Lankesh Wickramasinghe of DSS posing for a picture with the RIT Alles Memorial Challenge Trophy along with the two school principals Trizviiy Marikkar (Zahira) and Sampath Weragoda (DSS).-Picture by Pradeep Pathirana

By M. SHAMIL AMIT In a magnanimous gesture of humanitarian support, Zahira College will donate the gate money from their home inter school rugby match against DS Senanayake College towards the welfare of a teenage sportsman Janodya Manage who is battling leukemia.

Janodya is involved in sports at DS Senanayake and the two teams will play for the RIT Alles trophy.

With the first round matches of the Dialog Schools League rugby tournament coming to an end, the action will shift for schools competing in the second round which is scheduled to get underway from July 19.

Apart from the tournament matches some of the schools will also be playing their traditional encounters and one such encounter is between Zahira and DSS with the two teams vying for the RIT Alles Memorial Challenge Trophy scheduled to be played on July 19 at Zahira ground in Maradana.

This will be the fifth in the series which began in 2018 and from the matches played so far the two schools share the honours by having won the encounter two times each and the trophy is lying at DSS who won the encounter last year.

The Alles trophy pays tribute to one of Sri Lanka’s visionary leaders who was the founding principal of DSS in 1967 where he introduced rugby in 1974 and following that he also served as the Director of Studies at Zahira College from 1983 to 1985.

The annual encounter also serves as a powerful symbol of unity, camaraderie and mutual respect between the two institutions promoting values and friendship through sport.

The two teams are evenly balanced although DSS has recorded three wins against St Anthony’s College, Ananda College and Science College with two defeats against Wesley College and St Peter’s College.

Zahira has two wins against Dharmaraja College and Mahanama College and suffered defeats against S. Thomas’ College, Kingswood College and Isipathana College.

A closely contested game is in the offing as DSS will be seeking for a repeat and Zahira aiming to regain the trophy.