Reminiscing their last day together

As close friends and members of the D.S. Senanayake college baseball team attended the funerals of seven of their colleagues and their coach last week, three of the baseball team members shared experiences of poignant moments of the last day they spent with their colleagues.

Rilwan, Arshad and Kasun speaking to The Sunday Times recalled the last few days spent with their team mates and how they had to leave them on the previous day not expecting they would never meet again. Mohammad Rilwan (18) said they left Colombo on Friday afternoon to take part in a club match at the Peradeniya University.

"It was soon after inter-house matches in school when Malinda aiya as the baseball team coach Malinda Aramadura was affectionately known told us about the tournament and we agreed to take part," he said adding that he had told Malinda aiya that I and Arshad would have to return to Colombo on Sunday for our AAT classes and if that was not possible we would have to skip the tournament. The coach had agreed to this.

They had played two matches on Saturday; one with Colombo University and Mahinda Old Boys' team but, surprisingly had lost both."We normally don't lose our matches but for some reason or other we lost both matches that day. The opposing players were older and more experienced than us, we were the only school team to take part in the tournament," Rilwan said and added that they had previously beaten many such teams and had won a place in every tournament they took part after Malinda Aramadura (26) was appointed as our coach.

"He was our assistant coach for four years and became the chief coach two years ago", Rilwan said. Kasun Dilhara (18) said Malinda had been far more than a coach; he was a real brother to the team members. "Not knowing what was in store for him, he told my mother not to worry about me that he would drop me safely at home", he said.

“We finished both matches by about 6.30 p.m. The team had decided not to play the other two matches we were scheduled to play on Sunday with the Peradeniya University and Kingswood College teams as the team had lost the first two matches,” Rilvan said.

"When I and Rilwan told Malinda ayya that we were leaving, he asked the rest of the team what they will want to do; either to leave that day itself or on Sunday. The majority wanted to stay the night at the University saying the team rarely gets time to enjoy," Mohammad Arshad (17) said. Another reason to stay back and return on Sunday morning was that most of the team mates were from the outstations and had no way of reaching their homes at night; Kolitha Kumara (19) from Hokandara, Vimukthi Thewarapperuma (18) from Kalutara, Dinuk Priyasanka (16) from Agalawatte.

"I and Rilvan left Peradeniya at around 8.45 p.m. on Saturday to come to Colombo and Kasun too came along with us to go to his aunt's place," Arshad said. Supun said he had planned to stay at the University with his mates but his cousins had blamed him for not visiting them.

"So I decided to go. I invited Thiwanka and Supun to come with me. Though they agreed at first, they later changed their mind and asked me to meet them in the morning to return to Colombo together. But later I decided to stay back, even though my mother wanted me to return on Sunday with the team," he said. On Sunday Arshad and Rilwan had gone to classes and around 12.30 pm Malinda had phoned them and told they were at Polgahawela and that they would inform Rilwan when they reached Colombo.

"Meanwhile, without knowing we had left early, Kolitha's mother too phoned me and asked to remind Kolitha to take his medicine on time as he was not well", Rilwan said. A few minutes before the blast, at 2.06 pm, Malinda had phoned Rilwan as promised, probably as soon as the team got off the train. "But I couldn't answer the phone as the lecturer was standing near me. A few minutes later Arshad got an alert on his mobile about the blast and as the news spread fast, the class too was ended early," Rilwan explained.

When Rilvan was on his way back, a school friend phoned him and had told him that members of the DS team had got caught in the blast and that he had seen some baseball bats as well."I felt it might be our team. I went home and rushed to the hospital", he said. On his way Rilwan had phoned Malinda's mobile 18 times but no one had answered. However on the 19th time, a police officer answered and told him that there had been an accident and the baseball team had been hospitalized and asked him to rush to the hospital. But soon afterwards, another friend of Rilwan had phoned and told him that his "Malinda ayya" had died.

"I went straight to the mortuary to identify his body. It was not difficult as he had no external damages at all", Rilwan recollected. Dinuk, Eranda Chathuranga (21) from the OBA and Thiwanka Thisea (18) were transferred to the ICU immediately and had to undergo operations though the doctors had said that hopes of survival were minimum. Dinuk, who had spoken while in the ICU had pleaded with the doctors to save him saying he was the only boy in the family. Supun Hallala (17) too was the only child in his family. His aunts and uncles didn't have children.

But all three of them died before next morning. "Our young players believed they will definitely become under-18 baseball champions, but DS lost the most and the best of its under-18 team," Arshad said adding that Rajarathnam Radeeshwaran (18) was the one who had most hopes on the team becoming the champions. The three of them said that they hoped to organize a baseball big match with their neighbouring school, Royal and to name it after their coach Malinda.

“Thiwanka was the team joker, pleasant, chubby, always with a smile on his face. Kolitha too was the same. He can make anyone laugh", Rilwan said recalling memories of his deceased friends. "We used to call Supun "podi eka" because he was young but ironically was the most well built player in the team. I don't think even four guys could beat him at once," Kasun said with a smile. "And they were very good at their lessons too".

"Our team was well disciplined and well united. Even when they died, they had stayed together. We always have team talks and I think that was what they had been doing, having a team talk about the next practice date and what changes should be done and so on," Rilwan said. For the first time in Sri Lanka’s history, almost an entire sports team had been killed in a tragic incident.