Sinhalese Sports Club

The fence at Maitland Place is the only thing separating the ground from Nondescripts Cricket Club. It was not always this way — the original fixture of that name pitted SSC against Tamil Union, until Nondescripts grew strong enough to take its place. Together with Colombo Cricket Club, the two neighbours are still spoken of as the holy trinity of the island's domestic game.

SSC has spent that rivalry at the top of the table. Its 10,000-seat ground, often called the Lord's of Sri Lanka, has staged a club that has taken the Premier Trophy 32 times since the tournament's 1938 inception.

Mahela Jayawardena and Arjuna Ranatunga both came through SSC. Muttiah Muralitharan and Sanath Jayasuriya, by contrast, built their careers elsewhere, at Tamil Union and Bloomfield respectively.

The club traces itself back to a single afternoon in 1899, when a combined schools cricket team beat Colts Cricket Club by a single run. It was that match that led directly to SSC's founding on 27 March the same year.