Two old Thomians to celebrate golden anniversaries
50 years back almost to the day, the then 2-day Royal-Thomian cricket encounter, began at the P. Saravanamuttu stadium, formerly known as the Colombo Oval, on 11th March 1966. The Thomians were led by Anura Tennekoon while Lakshman Thalaysingham captained the Royalists.
As the 137th annual fixture – the second oldest uninterrupted school cricket match in the world – begins at the Singhalese Sports Club grounds on 10th March 2016 – there are a couple of golden anniversary landmark achievements worth recalling.
Sadly though – to Royalists, that is! – the kudos belong to two Thomians! Firstly, this match due to begin shortly, would mark the golden anniversary for Thomian skipper Anura Tennekoon, having led his team in 1966. Arguably, one of the most technically accomplished batsman to emerge in the pre-Test era, he went on not only to captain his college, club and country but also, inter alia, went on to become the CEO of the Cricket Board, The Cricket Foundation and Manager of the national team. The right-handed Tennekoon has the unenviable record of having notched a century against three visiting international teams, namely England, India and the West Indies.
Undoubtedly, these are feats without parallel achieved by a single player in the annals of local pre-Test cricket history. Secondly, one must not fail to mention the other golden anniversary that falls on the shoulders of left- handed batsman – and a brilliant fielder to boot – namely, Sriantha Rajapakse who hit a face-saving, albeit, possibly a match-saving century (101) out of a meagre Thomian total of 187 in the 1966 game. Statistically this innings accounted for more than half the total – or 54% to be exact. Interestingly, only one other Thomian batsman reached over 20 runs.
That was the contribution made by opener A.M. (‘Tony’) Perera (22) while ‘Extras’ (16) too helped swell the total. The last 5 Thomian wickets fell for a paltry 6 runs! Perera’s individual score of 22 runs is a mere 11.76% of the Thomian total. When taking into account previous Thomian batsmen who made hundreds in the first innings of a R-T, starting with B.T. Jansz in 1917,until Rajapakse did so in 1966, Perera’s score is the lowest contribution by any Thomian batsman while a century was being notched from the other end as at that date. In other words, Rajapakse’s innings was of inestimable value for the Thomians.
Reverting to the R-T of 1966, batting first, the Thomians were not healthily placed at 16/2 with skipper Tennekoon (2) also back in the hutch. The Royal bowlers, especially after left-arm spinner Wadugodapitiya (who ended with the excellent figures of 4/38) having earlier accounted for the Thomian skipper cheaply now smelled blood. Then it was Rajapakse who belligerently counter-attacked while losing his partners at regular intervals from the other end until off-spinner Wimaladharma trapped him leg-before but not before reaching a hundred and thus becoming the 11th Thomian centurion in the ‘Big match’ as at that date.
Rajapakse eventually went on to don the national cap as well whilst enjoying a colourful career representing SSC in the P. Sara Trophy tournament. Of course rain on both days of the 1966 Royal-Thomian curtailed play to a great extent and Royal, in a desperate bid to obtain a result, declared their innings closed at 160/6 with S. Skandakumar top-scoring with a fluent 62. STC replied with 43/2 when rain had the last say.