EVOLUTION OF THE BATTLE
Cricket it seems, has been played in some
form or the other, since the latter part of the 18th century.
The first reference to cricket being played in recorded history
is that of the game being played between Prince Edward and his
friend Piers Gaveston. The first recorded match however took
place at Coxheath in Kent in 1646, and the first county match
was played between the Londoners (Middlesex) and Kentish on 29th
June 1709 at Dartford Brent.
The Hambledon Club, a small club in Hampshire,
brought attention to the sport, as they challenged the larger clubs
with a run for their money. Their historian, John Nyren, wrote prose
literature on the subject of cricket. This team played its final
recorded match in 1793 at Lord's in London, the most important
cricket site in cricket history. Lord's was begun in Dorset Square
as a private cricket field by Thomas Lord, a Yorkshire man who
bowled for the club. In 1813, the club was moved from its second
location at St. John's Wood to its present field. However, the
original Dorset Square turf was re-laid with each change. The
Marylebone Cricket Club, (MCC) with Lord's as its 'home base', is
considered the international cricket authority.
Incidentally, this was also the period in which
the game slowly spread to it's colonies. By the end of the 19th
century, Cricket was played by both Oxford and Cambridge, and
indeed, it was because of two Cambridge blues that the first Inter
Collegiate match came to be played. We see that Mr. Ashley Walker,
the Assistant Principal of the Colombo Academy suggested to his
Thomian counterpart. Reverend T.F Falkner that an annual inter
school match be played. Thus in 1878, the first match was played on
the Slave Island Green, with players going across the Beira Lake
with their cricket gear and luncheon baskets. What was most notable
about this match was that many of the staff played in it as well.
Mr. F. Stephens another Cambrian, played for Thomas' as did Reverend
Moyrick. The former had played for C.C.C and several European teams
as well. He later coached and supervised Cricket at S. Thomas' for
many years.
The first match played exclusively by school
boys took place in 1880 however, and it is at this point that our
scorebooks, as well as the true spirit of the Royal Thomian
commences. The Galle Face Green thus became the starting point of
125 years of traditional rivalry. It is said that in the early years
matches where umpired by the Warden and Principal of the respective
institutions. Proof of this can be found in the Great
Inter-Collegiate Match photograph of 1909 where we see Warden W.A.
Stone and Acting Principal Lewis Walker posing in umpires clothing
beside the players. In still later years, famous coloursmen of the
likes ofD.L de Saram, Frank Ondaatje, M. Saravanamttu, C.W Van
Geyzel reportedly acted as umpires. Eventually however, at the
request of both parties, umpires were appointed from the Umpires'
Association. Thus, the early part of the 20th century saw the
evolution of the basis of today's Royal Thomian. Over the next 125
years, the match transformed very little. The venues have changed,
the pace of the game has been upped, but the spirit is stands
unmoved.
Although the national cricket scene of today is
miles ahead of what it was when the Royal Thomian first came into
being, the Big Match, is without a doubt, the most eagerly awaited
fixture of the season. 125 unbroken years of play, also makes it the
longest, continuous fixture between any two institutions anywhere in
the world. For more than a century, the Royal Thomian was the very
essence of cricket in Sri Lanka. Indeed for many of us, it still is.
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