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Asgiriya - only test venue owned by a school
By Shamseer Jaleel
Located in the Central Province of Sri Lanka's cool hill capital, Asgiriya is primarily a school venue. Trinity College Kandy better known in the field of Rugby are the proud owners of this test venue.

Asgiriya hosted its first test match way back in 1983 between Australia and Sri Lanka. In this encounter Australians beat the home team by an innings to register victory as this venue became the world's 54th test venue. Asgiriya was a small cricket ground of Trinity College which was transformed into an international cricket venue within a short period of time. The late Gamini Dissanayake, a respected cricket board president and an old boy of the Trinity College Kandy was the key figure behind the success of the most beautiful ground in Asia.

Though this ground is being appreciated by visiting captains the local team's success here is negligible. Unfortunately it also has a fair share of poor weather effecting matches played here during off seasons (May to November).

Asgiriya has hosted 17 test matches from the inception in 1983. The highest score recorded was 514/4 dec scored by the Australians in the very first test match at this ground. The Sri Lankans were shot out for a mere 71 by Pakistanis in 1994. Marvan Atapattu's 223 is the highest by a batsman and spinner Muttiah Muralitharan's 9/51 against Zimbabwe in 2001 stands as the best bowling figures recorded so far.

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