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| Sunday, 1 February 2004 |
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125th encounter on March 11, 12 and 13 at SSC grounds : President and three PMs played in Royal-Thomian cricket match by A.C. DE SILVA A President and three Prime Ministers have actively participated in the historic 'Battle of the Blues' cricket encounter and with the match getting on in years - this year being the 125th encounter, some of the elder statesmen too, have gone to their eternal rest. The first Prime Minister of Sri Lanka - late D.S. Senanayake played in this match way back in 1901 and 1902 while his son late Dudley Senanayake played for three years - 1927 to 1929 and both of them turned out for S. Thomas'. Royal was not outdone and the late Sir John Kotelawala who was Prime Minister in the good old days, played for Royal in 1914 while the first President of Sri Lanka - who was also Prime Minister earlier on, represented Royal in 1925. In the first two years of the match - 1878 and 1879 Royal included that famous old Cambridge Blue and Yorkshire cricketer Ashley Walker, then a member of the college staff and regular cricket coach and Mr. Archibald Campbell - the tallest schoolmaster any Sri Lanka school ever possessed. S. Thomas' had the assistance of Mr. S.J. Merrick who was also a teacher. Masters were included for the first two years to have discipline instilled in the players and from 1880 onwards there were only students who played for the two teams. This match has had several venues, having first started at Galle Face and in recent times, it came to Saravanamuttu Stadium and presently at the SSC grounds at Maitland Place. The match in 1913 was played for the first time on the Tamil Union grounds at Campbell Park and was won by Royal for whom left-hand bowler Dick de Saram took 11 wickets on the two days for 78 runs and as a result Royal went on to win the match by 105 runs. In the Thomian team was V.P. Cooke who went on to became a vetteran master at S. Thomas' in later years. In 1915, the late Warden of S. Thomas' Canon R.S. de Saran, who ruled the school well with discipline strictly enforced, was a member of the Thomian team that confronted Royal. Some of the others on his side were late S. Saravanamuttu, B.T. Jansz and A.E.A. Crewther. The first century in the series was scored by B.T. Jansz of S. Thomas' in 1917 at Campbell Park in the Thomian total of 275. There was another Thomian batsman who was among the runs - F. Foenander who made 60. The match, however was drawn as Royal made 172 and were 33 for 4 wickets in their follow-on. Jansz later went on to join the priesthood in England. In the Royal team was E.A. 'Botha' de Kretser who made 87 and he went on to beat the Royal record of 67 by Elmore Jayatilleke which stood since 1895. Since 1918, most of the matches have been played on the old SSC ground, while in 1929, the Golden Jubilee match too was also played there. In that match the late F.C. de Saram made 72 and H.E. Poulier 63 and Royal went on to win that game by 7 wickets. Royal made 293 and 37 for 3 wickets, while S. Thomas' made 190 and 138 which score included a defiant 55 by A.J.D.N. Selvadurai. The matches in the popular series were gathering momentum and in 1930, late D.B. Gunasekera set up a new batting record in the series making 148 in the somewhat massive Royal score of 346 for 8 wickets declared. Gunasekera beat the previous record of 133 by N.S. Joseph set up in 1916. Besides D.B. Gunasekera, there was another batsman who made merry with the Thomian attack - R. Jeganathan who made 92. Royal won that match by an innings and 67 runs, as the Thomians were able to muster only 137 and 142. It was only D.B. Gunasekera's batting that helped the Royalists, his bowling too was a bit too much for the Thomians to cope with as he took 7 for 57 in the first innings and 2 for 53 in the second innings. However, S. Thomas' had the honour of getting to the highest Individual innings when Norman Siebel made the magical score of 151 not out and held the record for a long time. S. Thomas' made 286 with the help of Siebel's majestic knock and declared at 134 for no wicket with W. Jayatilleke making 72 not out and N. Scheffer 54 not out. Royal made a stubborn reply of 289 for 8 wickets declared in their first innings with Pat McCarthy unfortunate to miss on a century, being dismissed for 98 and in their second turn. The Royalists made 32 for one wicket at close of play. After the fine batting of D.B. Gunasekera, the following year - 1931 had the late F.C. de Saram who captained Royal, become the first captain in the series to score a century. He made 140 and Royal went on to win the match by 8 wickets. Royal made 258 and 26 for 2 wickets, while S. Thomas' were shot out for 60 and even though they did somewhat better in their follow-on, getting 218 runs, it was no sufficient to prevent a Royal victory. Rare records In 1902, Harry Tringham of S. Thomas' making his first appearance for S. Thomas' made 91. Then in 1909, the late Dr. C.H. Gunasekera of Royal had somewhat an unique record by going in first and carrying out his bat for 55 in the Royal first innings of 152. S. Thomas' were shot out for 50 in the first innings with four batsmen failing to score and in the second innings they worse and were out for 42. Royal's Wambeck had a match-bag of 12 for 30. R. Bertie Wijesinha of S. Thomas' holds an unique record in that on four occasions, he scored a half-century in each innings, namely 57 in 1936, 53 in 1937 and finally 63 and 70 in 1939. The late G.P. Keuneman was the first bowler to perform the hat-trick for Royal in 1901, while Sam Elapatha was the first to do so for S. Thomas' in 1944. Once, J.C. MoHeyzer of S. Thomas' took 4 for 0 in one innings while in 1909 Dr. Lourensz Wambeek and J. Arunachalam bowled unchanged in the first and second innings respectively. Their analysis - W.G.L. Wambeck 21-11-21-6 and 17-12-9-6; J. Arunachalam 20-12-26-3 and 16-3-25-3. No bowler has ever taken all ten wickets in one innings - not even nine wickets. However, in 1984, Fred Thomasz of S. Thomas' took 8 wickets for 3 runs in one innings - this is the best feat of its kind in the series. Many are the instances of fathers and sons playing in the series, but there are only two instances of a father and son captaining - CH Gunasekera (snr) in 1912 and C.H. Gunasekera (jnr) better known as Channa in 1949; D.W.L. Lieversz (snr) in 1926 and D.W.L. Lieversz (jnr) in 1962. |
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