Royal memorable 7-wkts win in jubilee match

By A.C. De Silva

FLASHBACK: The Royal-Thomian cricket encounters are over for the year, but one match in the long history of the game at the two schools will undoubtedly be the Jubilee Match of 1929 where Royal scored a memorable 7-wkts win. The match was played on March 14 and 15 at the former SSC grounds.

The Thomians had done well in the matches leading upto the big encounter, they just not match the Royalists in the Jubilee Match and lost the match by seven wickets.

Royal's captain Kandian won the all-important toss and they pushed home the advantage. Though the Royalists lost an early wicket that of G.S. Hubert for 5, they quickly recovered through a second wicket partnership of 65 runs between F.C. De Saram (72) and R. Wilson (34) and they went on offensive thereafter and tore up the Thomian attack.

A seventh wicket partnership between H.E. Poulier (63) and skipper N. Kandiah (26) which realised 63 runs really put them on top. Royal made 293 in their first innings - the second highest total until then. The highest total was 304 by Royal in 1926.

Dudley and Robert in Thomian team

For the Thomians M.O. Gooneratne and Robert Senanayake took two wickets each. For the first time in the series, three sets of brothers participated in one game. Dudley Senanayake and Robert Senanayake for S. Thomas', A. Abeygoonewardena and D. Abeygoonewardena also for S. Thomas' and the De Saram - 'F.C.' and 'F.R.' for Royal. S. Thomas' were forced to follow-on as they failed to make four vital runs to avoid it. The follow-on turned out to be a grim struggle between bat and ball as the Thomians faced an innings defeat. However, there was A.J.D.N. Selvadurai who stuck it out in the middle to make 55 and with skipper R. Hermon making 30.