MEMORIES THAT LINGER
Having sung the
praises of the demigods of our youth a decade ago, I now come to
the days of our youth, so to speak. "O talk not to me of a name
great in story; The days of our youth are the days of our
glory". Well, young Byron actually hadn't in mind anything as
base as the size of the newspaper headlines you made or the size
of the crowds who watched you play at Reid Avenue, but a lesser
poet may well have in our time!
What different times those were. I
refer to the years 1964 to 1968 during which I had the privilege
of being a member of the Royal squad for the big match as a
player or reserve. Our school mates were there in large numbers
to watch and cheer the team week after week at home or away and
prefects had their work cut out with "crowd control",
particularly if we were winning. I remember our current highly
esteemed Solicitor-General C.R. "Bulla" de Silva, who was a
prefect then and rugby captain too, hauling some junior boys
over the coals in the prefect's room on the Monday after the
Nalanda match for trying to manhandle the batsmen returning to
the pavilion!
Certainly the most
moving memory I have of that era, which epitomizes the spirit in
which those games were played, was when the Thomians won in 1964
after ten consecutive draws. Royal was captained by J.D. 'Shaw'
Wilson and St Thomas' by Premalal Goonesekere. Now Shaw Wilson was
not only physically large, but also very large-hearted. As he
entered the dressing room he was in a mighty hurry. "Hurry up, get
your blazers on, we are going to carry Premalal" he boomed. There
was no time to sit around and mope. The Royal team met the Thomian
team half way to their dressing room and the Royalists then threw
Premalal in the air to the strains of "For he's a jolly good
fellow". It was a quite a stirring moment and that night at the team
dinner, the St Thomas' College Warden, C.H. Davidson, in his speech
paid tribute to Wilson's spontaneous act of sportsmanship.
If memories of those years tend to be
dominated by Thomian feats, it's probably because they had more
attacking teams and some swashbuckling players. They won once,
nearly won once and nearly lost once. For those passionate about
statistics, they scored at an average rate .of 3.1 runs per over as
compared with Royal's 2.2 runs per over. Royal fell below 2 runs per
over in three innings while the Thomians never did.
In 1965, Royal scraped through to
draw. That broad-shouldered left-handed all-rounder Nissanka
Waddugodapitiya saved Royal with a gritty innings of 51 not out. The
Thomian Balasingham was truly fast with a beautiful action and no
doubt grazed Wadu's chin a few times in fading light - no helmets in
those days! But then, we never took our eyes off the ball unlike
many batsmen today. Balasingham had previously spent several years
at Hartley College, Jaffna and was typical of the very fast bowlers,
at least by school standards, the Jaffna schools regularly produced
in those days. In that second innings Balasingham bowled the Royal
opener Sirisena with a ball that simply crashed into his stumps on
the full before Sirisena could get his bat in the way! One of the
tragic losses due to the ethnic war must undoubtedly be the loss of
great Jaffna fast bowlers Sri Lanka would otherwise have had.
Royal's foil to Balasingham was the
eldest of the three Thalayasingham brothers, Lakshman, who went on
to captain in 1966. Thalay was also quick and Anura Tennakoon once
told me he reckoned Thalay might have been quicker than Bala. Thalay
was in any event probably the more complete bowler with his
unnervingly late out-swingers. I remember him perfecting that
out-swinger in the nets by bowling with a newish ball off just a
couple of steps. His famous first ball to start the 1965 game, was
hilariously described by Barney Reid a few years ago. Reid was
forced to play a classic fast out-swinger, which he could only edge
straight to the ever-reliable Sirisena at first slip. Well, almost -
the picture of the diving wicket-keeper Wijetilaka seemingly
punching the ball away from Sirisena is etched in my memory as I was
the Royal scorer at that moment in the lovely ivy covered Oval
scoreboard. So '1' it was instead of 'w' !
The Thomian sides of 1964 and 1965
were indeed powerful. Three from those teams, Anura Tennakoon,
Sriyantha Rajapaksa and Mevan Pieris went on to play for Sri Lanka.
Tennakoon in fact won his Sri Lanka cap before the 1966 match. There
was also Sarath Seneviratne, the only batsman to score two nineties
in the series. These A two were a formidable duo. If Tennakoon was
the harder and more ruthless batsman, Seneviratne was certainly the
more flamboyant. His square drives, with one knee on the ground in
true Caribbean style, were thrilling to watch! And as if that wasn't
enough, the bowling was led by the formidable Barney Reid, the
fourth of the illustrious Reid brothers, who was in a class by
himself. Although five wicket hauls eschewed Reid, his stranglehold
over the Royal batting in those two years is revealed in his amazing
total figures of 113-49-186-14.
It's not that Royal lacked talented
batsmen. Skandakumar and Kudahetty for example were princely when
they got going and their partnership in the rain-affected match of
1966 was as good as any in those years. Kudahetty also played a gem
of an innings in 1968 before being brilliantly caught by Dijen de
Saram for 45. Royal had won the toss after many years and that
innings, like Skandakumar's in 1966, looked like a hundred in the
making until it ended. But in general, Royal seemed to lack the
firepower and luck to make enough of those fifties and hundreds.
Whether this was a reflection of the respective coaching traditions
at the two schools or simply the Barney Reid factor in 1964 and
1965, we'd never know. But something I feel sure about is that had
the one-day game been around then, it would have greatly benefited
our approach to the two-day game. In general, run rates in the
conventional game have improved today, as batsmen have become more
accustomed to attacking through the one-day game. When I think of
someone like the burly R.P. "Parry" Liyanage, who was an incredible
hitter at under 14 and under 16 levels - I remember the balls
sailing into the "Siyambala" trees' - but who became a more
"respectable" batsman at the senior level, the heart weeps. I can
just imagine the mayhem that might have ensued if R.P. had been
turned loose in a one-day game with a target to chase!
The story of Chris Chitty, the Royal
fast bowler of 1967 and 1968, is a bizarre one. Chris never joined
us in any form of cricket throughout Prep and most of College until
he was almost sixteen. Not even "lunch-interval" cricket. He was
probably having a sumptuous lunch at his enormous home in Cambridge
Place instead! He did play, tennis though. And then one day in 1966
he shot to prominence through an otherwise unimportant first eleven
house match, which in those days was played on the small junior
grounds at Reid Avenue. Playing for Harward House, he ran through
Marsh House in their second innings who were all out for the paltry
total of 8 runs! This is probably a ground record to this day. Chris
took 8 for 1 with fiendish out-swingers. The hapless Marsh House
captain was Rohan Wijetilaka, the Royal vice-captain of 1967. This
catapulted Chris into the college first eleven from the obscurity of
"second set" practice and he tore through a number of schools that
season to end up with a record 83 wickets before the Royal-Thomian.
The story goes that the Thomians had worked out that their only
chance was to hit Chitty and his partner Brian Lieversz out of the
attack early. And that gangling cavalier Ajith Jayasekera did just
that. Jayasekera's great reach coupled with a superb eye and a
penchant for audacious leg-side sweeps set the scoreboard racing in
both innings. There were certainly some mis-hits and half-chances as
Chitty and Lieversz continued to attack the stumps, but fortune
favoured the brave. Royal's guru, L.D.S. "Chippie" Gunasekera also
believed we had played on the same strip the West Indians had played
on six weeks earlier, which had been slowed down to contain Wesley
Hall and company. Jayasekera was tremendous entertainment that year
although his opening partner David Ponniah, the present Warden, got
the hundred. However, Royal learnt and in 1968 and 1969 Jayasekera
was bottled up on the off-side fairly effectively, which was of
course a great shame for the crowd! By 1968 Chitty had developed
more variety and was probably a more cunning bowler, but his arm was
lower and the magic had gone !
If there was one Thomian who could be
depended on to get under our skin, it was Azam Hameed. He was a
nightmare. Like Jayasekera, Hameed was an aggressive competitor and
had the potential to turn a match. A dangerous rugby player too,
nothing unnerved him or shook his almost arrogant mien! A powerful
striker of the ball, there was little margin of error you could
afford. In both 1967 and 1968, although basically a support player
in those teams, he played a major role in thwarting Royal.
While 1968 saw the departure of six of
the team, it also saw the arrival of the fifteen year-old Asitha
Jayaweera. There was also the sixteen year-old Jagath Fernando who
just missed the big match that year. They were both such prodigious
youngsters and clearly destined C for the greatness they duly
achieved. Asitha was quite small made, and so during that season he
used a harrow size bat with which he won his colours. However, came
the Royal-Thomian and he felt he was now a 'big boy' and should use
a full size bat. And so out he went at number 3 with his big bat and
Royal 15 for 1. The Thomian paceman Tiny Reid was quickly into him
and by the time he got his big bat down he was caught in the slips
for a duck. The Royal second innings of that game commenced in
emotion charged circumstances as the fiery Thomian captain, Dennis
Chanmugam, had just made his famous controversial declaration after
saving the follow-on by just one run! If you ever want to die
laughing, just get Ajith Jayasekera to put on his superb mimicking
of the somewhat inebriated Thomian master and coach Orville
Abeynaike reacting to Dennis declaring without telling him! Well,
getting back to the game, Dennis was fuming at all the fuss as he
led his team out and grabbed the ball himself to open the bowling.
He came tearing in and his very first ball was an absolute corker
that crashed through the left-handed B.N.R. Mendis' defense to
shatter his stumps! It was tempting to shield Asitha and change the
batting order. But at least I had been able to persuade him since
his first innings duck to revert to his old harrow size bat. So I
thought, no, in you go laddie, this is how you prove yourself! And
the youngster rose to the occasion in style. The little blade
flashed, the little feet twinkled, and a blistering 49 followed in
just one hour with seven sparkling boundaries. A bright new Royal
star had truly been born!
And on that happy note I have to leave
it, a potpourri of pleasant memories of those days in the sun!
Ranjit Gunasekara
