Antonian Franklyn Burke brought honour and fame to his school – Hafiz Marikar

Franklyn Burke

One of the top cricketers to come out of St.Anthony’s College, Katugastota in the early 1960’s was Franklyn Burke, a cricketer who brought distinction to his school by winning the schoolboy cricketer of the year award in 1962, that fourth Antonian to gain this title within seven years. Franklyn Burke in the year 1962 in front of a mammoth gathering at Bogambara,brought honour to the Antonians when he was adjudged the schoolboy cricketer of the year.

His outstanding all-round season culminated with a thumping century against Trinity to the tune of 133 runs in 119 minutes with 19 fours and four sixes. Some of his highlights of the year were 38 and 2 for 16vs St Sylvester’s, 6 for 82 vs Royal, 26 n.o., 6 for 89 and 3 for 44 vs Kingswood, 3 for 100 vs Ananda, 57 and 65 n.o. and 4 for 57 vs Nalanda, 25 vs St.Joseph’s and 133 and 5 for 42 vsTrinity. It is worthwhile to note that his success came during a modest season for St Anthony’s following a decade of dominance at school cricket; in 1962 he played under N. Dunuwille. His brother Ralston Burke too was a top class cricketer. who played for the same school, Saracens SC and Sri Lanka Board President’s Eleven

Franklyn Burke was an all-rounder of the highest class – a tireless bowler, a hard-hitting batsman with strokes all-round the wicket and a superb fieldsman in any position. He joined the police force and played many years of Sara Trophy cricket for the Police and Bloomfield Cricket and Athletic Club

The Antonians are one of the oldest cricket playing schools in the country. They started playing from 1899., but only in1903 was the team formation done and the first Antonian cricket team was formed in 1903 by late Fr. Dom Andrew VanLangenberg OSB. The sporting father, having captained Royal College in the year 1896, joined the order of the Sylvester-Benedictine and was stationed in Kandy. In the early years, there was a mutual understanding among the Head of the schools in Kandy, not like today,that few members of the staff were permitted to take part in the cricket matches of their respective schools.

Fr. Andrew VanLangenberg led the Antonians while Philip Buultjens and E.Boultion led theTrinity and Kingswood teams respectively. The idea of staff participation alongside schoolboys was to inculcate the rudiments of cricket, inspire,encourage and give the right direction to the young cricketers in building team spirit and proper sportsmanship. At that time, school teams were therefore appropriately called “clubs”. Most of the matches were played with recognized clubs of Kandy and Colombo and British regimental units stationed in Kandy at the Barrack Square in Kandy, now called the Police Barracks.

At that time two letters “C.C” meaning Cricket Club were appended to the names of the schools. The inaugural cricket match of St. Anthony’s College CC was played with Colombo Carlton Cricket Club on 13th of April, 1903 at the Barracks Square in Kandy. This game went in favour of the Antonians by an innings and 129 runs in which Antonian skipper Fr. D. Andrew Van Langenberg notched an unbeaten 102runs. Then the first school game for the Antonians was against DharmarajaCollege, which the Antonians won by 109 runs in 1904. In those early days Antonians were treated in an off-handed manner. They were not allowed to participate in the Inter-Schools Tournament for the first division.

.The very first inter-school match was played against Dharmaraja College in1904, in the 50th year of the college’s existence. The team was again led byFr. Andrew which resulted in a 109 victory for the An tonians.

The first team comprising of only students was captained by Benny Lawrence in 1906 (Benny was the grandfather of our fellow Melbournian Chris Drieberg). C.H Wittatchy became the first Antonian to receive national honours when he represented the combined school XI against a foreign team, from New South Wales. In the first few years of its existence, cricket lost a child prodigy in Charlie Hamilton when he passed away in 1909 at the age of 12. By this time, Charlie had represented the college senior teams of cricket, football and hockey.