Neville Victor Anthony wins merit award for best Sports Journalist in Tamil at the Journalism Awards for Excellence 2024.
Neville Victor Anthony who write sports news and articles for Virakesari and it’s sister paper Thinakkurl won Merit award for the Best Sports Journalist in Tamil at the Journalism Awards for Excellence 2024 organized by SLPI at Mount Lavinia Hotel on Tuesday 20th, 2026.
He won this award writing for Thinakkural. Neville Victor Anthony also known as Tony Victor is a veteran Sri Lankan multi-sports journalist and annalysist with
decades of experience. He is one of the most senior journalists in Sri Lanka and one of the two pioneers who introduced the Sports Page in Tamil Newspapers, namely Virakesari Daily and Weekly.
He also did local and international coverages for Weekend Express (English) under the name of Tony Victor for a short period of time before joining the Electronic Media MBC Networks.
Though Neville is a multi-sports journalist, his main reporting was in cricket. He holds the distinction of covering and reporting Local and International Cricket tournaments. He was a ‘hidden’ journalist during the inaugural test match between Sri Lanka and England played in Colombo in 1982, because he worked as a part timer. He came to the fore in 1985 when he wrote a wide article on the inaugural tour of India to Sri Lanka which was won by Sri Lanka. That was the first test series covered by Neville.
His first World Cup coverage was the Wills World Cup in 1996 co- hosted by India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Unfortunately he could not cover the final round due to the passing away of his father – in – law.
While being a production staff at Virakesari he worked as a Freelance journalist until 1997.
Thereafter he was promoted as an Editorial staff and continued to cover and report cricket news locally and internationally until 2000 March.In 2000 March he joined MBC Networks as a News Compiler and continued to cover cricket news regularly. After working for a decade at Shakthi FM he retired in 2010 and rejoined Virakesari as a Consultant Sports – Editor and continues to work in the same role.
Neville is the longest – serving Tamil Cricket correspondent in Sri Lanka and he is the first to put out a Cricket World Cup Magazine in Tamil language in 2011 published by Express Newspapers.
He won the best Tamil Sports (Cricket) Journalist award twice at the SLC Cricket Awards Night.
Neville was first tamil journalist to win an award for the best journalist for covering and reporting Bristol League Football organized by Sri Lanka Football Association (presently FFSL) and Ceylon Tobacco Company. That was way back in 1987. He also won the best journalist award presented by FFSL in the late 1990s and early 2000s for reporting football news.
