Right Royal Ramanayake
S. Thomas’ College were ideally positioned to slay the demons of last year’s embarrassing loss after building an altar of atonement with two days of ruthless cricket, but they could not muster the final telling blow to punch through Royal College ’s batting ranks, which held on to pull the 135th Battle of the Blues to a sedate draw at the SSC yesterday.
The Royalists finished on 268 for 8, after Hashen Ramanayake, who held the innings together with a marathon stand at the wicket, fell four agonizing runs short of his century.
The Royal hero, Hashen Ramanayake plays one on to the onside during his match-saving inning of 96 against the Thomians. - Pix by Amila Gamage
Before the resumption of play, with Royal’s second innings paused at 36 for 1, trailing 167 runs behind the Thomians’ first innings score of 325 for 8, the day’s objectives were clearly outlined on the minds of both teams. For S. Thomas’, perfect retribution stood 9 wickets away while the Royalists confronted the challenge of a full day of determined and patient application with the bat.
After a jittery start with several nervous prods producing unintended boundaries, Royal saw their prospects of survival shaved even thinner. Opener Shaminda Dias danced indecisively toward a delivery from right-arm medium pacie Chenutha Wickramasinghe that shot off the pitch and squared him up, giving keeper Sanesh de Mel an easy catch.
His dismissal brought Hasitha Samarasinghe- who had retired from the innings on the previous day after suffering a severe cramp- back to the crease and he proceeded to calm the storm with Hashen Ramanayake. The pair forged a 51-run partnership to lift the score to 95 for 3.
Captains in action: Royal skipper Chamika Karunaratne pulls while his Thomian counterpart Madushan Ravichandrakumar (R) reacts swiftly
Then at the stroke of the lunch break, Ramanayake had his second slip, except this one paralyzed his mind. Hasith Samarasinghe, Ramanayake’s partner tried to pull at a ball from Sachitha Jayathilake which ducked between his legs and crashed into his stumps.
The wicket drew a thick cape of caution over Royal’s innings which shrouded the encounter in a prolonged spell of defensive prods and scant enterprise. Forty minutes after lunch and Royal had crawled to 130, with new batsman Randev Pathirana on 15 off 83 and Ramanayake nailed to the floorboards on 47.
As the possibility of a draw gathered momentum with each fended delivery, interest circled around Ramanayake’s measured march to a half century. He kept his supporters waiting. And waiting; parking himself at 47, where he remained for 56 balls, before guiding a delivery square along the off-side to the boundary to reach 51 off 202 balls.
Fittingly, Ramanayake chose the bowling of S. Thomas’ skipper Madushan Ravichandrakumar to erase the deficit with a rasping drive which pierced the infield with deadly precision. Heading into tea, with Royal’s score reading 175-3 after 90 overs, a draw was more or less guaranteed. Once again, on a day without much adrenaline, it was up to Ramanayake to deliver the excitement.
Randev beat him to it, although not in the way he would have wanted to, as he failed to make his crease at the bowler’s end after he was slow to respond to a call from Ramanayake for a second run.
Ramanayake though continued to trudge towards his century and yet again kept his large and charged legion of supporters holding their breath at the edge of the boundary. This time they exerted less patience, storming the pitch when they thought new batsman Thiran Dhanapala’s strike to the boundary came off Ramanayake’s bat. Play was held up for several minutes as ground security and organizing committee members cleared the field of all the excited invaders. By this time the Thomian fielders had left the field. But, readily came back for the restart so that Ramanayake may move on to his hundred, in spite only a few deliveries were left in the game.
The cruel irony of the situation was that the eagerness of his own fans to see him score a Big Match century perhaps brought about a lapse in Ramanayake’s concentration which resulted in him having to wait another year before he could go about recording one.Minutes after the restart, he mistimed a delivery from Afthab Cader, launching the ball high into the air for Nanayakkara to safely claim the catch. However, Ramanayake can take solace from the fact that his patient innings steadied what had been a rocky Royal fleet at the beginning of the day and ensured that the D.S Senanayake Memorial Shield stayed moored at Reid Avenue.
| Scoreboard
Royal College 1st innings 158 all out in 50.2 overs (Geeshat Panditharatne 25, Chamika Karunaratne 11, Thiran Dhanapala 46, Harith Samarasinghe 50, Sahan Wijesinghe 4 for 46, Abdul Cader 3 for 37) |