A
Big Match You Will Never Forget
What a match it was.
Exciting up to the last moment. This was the best I have seen out of all the big
matches which I have never missed.
In 1969 when we won the big match,
no one scored a half century. No one took more than 3 wickets in an inning
also. The top scorer for the entire match was the Royal skipper E.C. L.
Lieverz who scored 49 runs. An easy target of 180 runs to win in 160 minutes
of batting was given to the Thomians, whose side had hard hitting Ajith
Jayasekera as the opener. His wicket was taken very early with the 3rd ball
of the 2nd innings. The match was won with 10 minutes to spare.
In 1983, when we won again, the
team was led by the present Royal coach Chulaka Amerasinghe. It was Rochana
Jayawardene's match. He scored 145 runs and had a match bag of 9 wickets.
In 1990 under U. Wijesena, we were
the underdogs, as we lost to Nalanda and St. Joseph's but could not win a
single match during the entire season. But it was an entirely different game
at the S. S. C. S. Thomas' in their second essay were 60 for no loss at one
stage and were all out for 98 runs with S. Lokubalasooriya claiming 5 for 26
runs.
In 1991 under R. Iriyagolla we won
the big match again. Nigel Fernando who was the 1989 captain was able to
score a century.
Although we did not win in 1992
this match will be remembered as Gamini Perera's match. At the end of the
second day's play a Thomian victory was expected. On the 3rd day morning we
saw Thomian stickers which indicated that the son will emulate his father's
performance in 1964. (The Thomian captain in 1992 was S. Gunasekera and in
1964 S. Thomas's won under his father Premalal Gunasekar). But by the Tea
Interval on the 3rd day, Gamini Perera had taken control of the situation
and not a single Thomian bowler could not get him out. When he was on 146
they got him out, only through a run out. But by then we were safe. The
stickers were missing from the scene.
Before the 2006 Battle of the
Blues encounter, all newspapers reported that S. Thomas' had the edge over
Royal due to their aggressive fielding.
The turning point came on the 1st
day evening when the Royal opening pair S. Senaratne and M. Maligaspe scored
104 runs in 21 overs in reply to the Thomian score of 278 for 8 decl. The
first 50 came in 33 balls!
Even in 1967 when S. Thomas'
scored 56 for no loss it was scored in 33 minutes. On the second day this
pair extended the partnership to 218 runs, which was a Royal and a series
record for the 1st wicket. Both batsmen scored centuries. When Royal
declared at 432 for 7 wickets (Which was the highest for the entire series]
with a lead of 154 runs, Mount Lavinia boys knew that they could not win the
match.
On the 3rd day after lunch, when
Pussegolla and Karunaratne were out in the same over to D. Nanayakkara, S.
Thomas' lost the last chance of saving the match.
When the target was 142 runs in 23
overs, so many old Royalists were worried whether we can achieve this
target. But as a person who had seen most of our other inter school matches
during the season, I knew that we can achieve this as 3 weeks ago against
Wesley at Campbell Place, when the target was 190 to win in 23 overs, we
scored 148/8. [At one stage it was around 130 for 3 in 13 overs]
When chasing this target the Royal
openers once again tore into the Thomian attack. (They also went to bat
before the Thomians walked into the field). With the first 4 overs the score
was 32. During this period S. Senaratne scored his 1000th run for the
season. After the departure of the 2 openers, Kusal Perera and the 2005
captain Dimitri Siriwardane had a good partnership. Just after Kusal
Perera's dismissal play was interrupted due to the fact that the wickets and
bails were stolen by some unruly Thomian supporters. During the final 30
minutes Dimitri Siriwardene and Dulanjaya Wijeratne had to bat in fading
light. When Dimitri hit the winning boundary with 11 balls to spare this
match became one of the best ever Royal-Thomian matches in the history, with
an aggregate of 1149 runs for 28 wickets, with the side losing also scoring
573 runs.
Remember, in 2005 we lost the big
match by innings and 28 runs. 6 of the present team members were there. Any
how, with new ideas coming from the new coach, under N. Punchihewa's
captaincy, the boys were able to achieve whatwe all wanted after 15 years.
Let us
continue this forward.
M. L. Fernando
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