Cambrian Cecil Peiris makes four centuries in four successive outings in 1943

By Dilwin Mendis - Moratuwa Sports Corr.

CRICKET: The Second World War curtailed all sports activities and cricket suffered the most. Inter-School cricket matches were curtailed and playing hours in most matches were reduced. There were some matches that were played from 12 noon to 5 p.m. and some games were played from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

But nevertheless the games went on. In 1943 there were two cricketers who blossomed out in the inter-school cricket arena - that’s George Rajapaksa from Royal College and Cecil Peiris from Prince of Wales. Both George Rajapaksa and Cecil Peiris came from cricketing families - George’s father D. M. Rajapaksa who entered the legislature later and uncle D. A. Rajapaksa who is the father of Mahinda Rajapaksa - the President of Sri Lanka right now. Both of them played for Richmond College, Galle.

Then Cecil’s two brothers Lloyed and Terrence excelled for Prince of Wales, George Rajapaksa, who turned out to be an MP and later a Minister, was a good batsman while he was at school and Cecil was an all-rounder.

Prince of Wales have been associated with cricket for a long time and many of the top cricketers from Moratuwa came from that establishment.

An eagerly awaited match was the clash between Royal College and Trinity College in Kandy while the Cambrians led by Cecil Peiris with able assistance from Eustance Jayawickrema who later represented Bank of Ceylon and his son Ashok Jayawickrema captained Royal in the eighties, were scheduled to play against Kingswood at Randles Hill.

Royal won the toss against Trinity and the Cambrians too won the toss against Kingswoodians and the two visiting teams batted. Cambrian skipper Cecil Peiris completed a century and made 142 while George Rajapaksa made 143.

Prince of Wales made 272 and Kingswood made the identical score of 272. P. Jayasinghe made 103 and N. Wadugodapitiya 50. Cecil Peiris of Prince of Wales took 5 for 36.

In their second innings, Prince of Wales declared at 182 for 5 wickets with Cecil Peiris making 102 runs.

Kingswood had a victory target of 183 runs and when stumps were drawn for the day, Kingswood were 12 runs behind - 171 for 7 wickets. Cecil Peiris had a ‘take’ of 5 for 56, making a handsome bowling performance with a haul of 10 for 92 - a fine performance indeed:

By this performance Cecil Peiris became the first schoolboy cricketer to score twin centuries and have a bag of 10 wickets in an inter-school cricket encounter.

Then in their second innings, George Rajapaksa of Royal College completed an unbeaten 100 runs. Thus Cecil and George became the first two schoolboys to score twin centuries and this was recorded in the same weekend and both twin centuries were virtually delivered on the same day and in same town - Kandy. Altogether five centuries were scored in the two games. Twin centuries from Cecil Peiris from Prince of Wales and two from George Rajapaksa and another century from P. Jayasinghe of Kingswood.

Royal College team returned to Colombo while Prince of Wales stayed back to play against Dharmaraja. This Royal-Dharmaraja encounter was curtailed to a single day’s play as the second day was washed cut by rain.

Cecil Peiris made it a memorable week for him and Prince of Wales when he made third successive century and the game ended in a ‘no-decision’.

Then in the following week, Prince of Wales played their annual ‘Big Match’ of years gone by against St. John’s Panadura - now Cyril Jansz College, at the Panadura Esplanade and Cecil Peiris scored his fourth consecutive century on the fourth successive outing.

The Cambrians beat the Johnians by an innings.