It may have been a friendly enactment of the oldest cricketing rivalry in Sri Lanka but the first Royal-Thomian game in Dubai, played recently, sure brought back fond memories.
Royal College scored a six-wicket victory in the first old boys Battle of the Blues in the Middle East at the Dubai Exiles grass pitch. A superb 31 not out by Nurendra Perera and a breezy 24 from opening batsman Chinthaka Edirimanna saw the star-studded Royal side trouncing their arch-rivals in the Arabian desert.
Chasing a Thomian total of 98 for 9 in 20 overs, the Royalists led by Heshan de Silva overcame a few hiccups on the way to win the limited-over affair with five overs to spare under floodlights. Heshan, who won the toss had no hesitation in putting the opponents into bat, a move that at one stage threatened to backfire due to some gritty Thomian batting but veteran Yasantha Peiris spearheading a powerful bowling armoury helped prevent S.Thomas from going on the rampage. P. Kathy top scored for S.Thomas with 26 with one 4, followed by Lanka Lions stalwart Derick Jansen who made 21 with two boundaries. Yasantha finished with 2 for 11 and Manjula Premaratne had figures of 2 for 16. Faced with a required run rate of just under five an over, Royal openers Chinthaka and Lasantha Dhanthanarayana (18) set about their task in right royal fashion posting 46 for the first wicket. Chinthaka's 24 contained 2 fours and 2 sixes while Lasantha had a single boundary in his valuable knock.
Later Nurendra partnered Manjula Premaratne (11) to ensure a Royal victory by putting on 43 for the third wicket. Nurendra had five 4s and a huge six in his entertaining knock while Derick Jansen and Mark Perera took two wickets each.
The day-night match was played against the backdrop of a typical Battle of The Blues carnival atmosphere. By a strange coincidence the two skippers, Heshan de Silva (Royal) and Lindon Loos (S.Thomas) were also the captains of Royal and S.Thomas when the two teams met in the annual Battle of the Blues in Colombo in 1985!
Keeping to the spirt of the event, the organisers had also arranged a Royal-Thomian veterans match and games of fun for kids like bun-eating and banana-eating races, for ladies (lime and spoon and wrapping the mummy competitions), a sack race for the men and finally the Royal-Thomian tug-of-war for both men and women Royal were made to sweat to win the vintage version by four runs. Royal scored 49 for 5 in the allotted 12 overs and S.Thomas made 45 for 7 in reply. Adding to the entertainment were fun ball-by-ball commentaries throughout the day by the "expert" trio of Rameez, Rama and Ruwan. |
