Sugi is no more

An APPRECIATION: Remember Sugi Rajaratnam the former dusky Royal College cricketer of the early 1960s? He passed away last week and his funeral took place last evening at the General Cemetery, Kanatte amidst a large gathering of relatives, friends and former cricketers.

Sugi made his debut for Royal in 1962 under Darrel Lieversz and during the season claimed 17 wickets at an average of 19.7, and finished fourth in the batting averages with 16.0. In the traditional Battle of the Blues encounter, Sugi, claimed 2 for 42 in the Thomian first innings. S. Thomas' were led by Keith Labrooy.

Then in 1963 under the late S. S. Kumar, Sugi, was second in the bowling averages (11.29) with 37 wickets and fifth in the batting averages (21.73) with 326 runs with the highest being 67. In the game with S. Thomas', I remember Sugi hammering an unbeaten 24 in 24 minutes and Vijay Malalasekera the former Cambridge "Blue" hitting a brilliant unbeaten 112 in only 131 minutes.

In his final year, he played under Shaw Wilson when Royal lost the big 'un to the Thomians led by Premalal Gunasekera. This year (1964), Sugi, totalled 338 runs during the season with an average of 30.73 and was second only to Wilson. He headed the bowling averages with 8.73 with 33 scalps.

He was a top fast bowler and a hard hitting batsman. Some of his contemporaries at Royal were Chanaka de Silva, S. D. Jayarathne, T. R. Jansen, H. Macan Markar, S. Thiagarajah, P. Witharne, Sockanathan, Arul Anketell, Ananda Wimaladharma, A. Samarajeeva, Lucky Thalayasingham, H. N. de Silva, Ranjith Gunasekera, Ronnie Schokman, Nissanka Wedugodapitiya and many others.

Sugi leaves behind his wife Suvendrini (nee Gnanakone) and two children Sukanya and Sumangala.

May the turf lie gently over him.

(L.G.)