132nd Battle of the Blues:
Both teams expect Batsmen to shine
Dinesh WEERAWANSA
There have not been any favourites or underdogs in the recent
Royal-Thomian big match history and even the most accurate cricket
expert would hesitate to make a prediction on the second oldest and
uninterrupted inter-school cricket series in the world.
|
|
Ramith
Rambukwella |
Chamod
Pathirana |
That�s because the form book plays little or no part when it comes to
Royal-Thomian, especially during the last decade. Nevertheless, I should
be impartial and say that S. Thomas� College, Mt. Lavinia should have a
slight edge over Royal College, Colombo 7 in their 132nd Battle of the
Blues three-day cricket encounter which starts at the picturesque SSC
ground today.
Both Royal and S. Thomas� have played 18 matches each this season.
But the latter has managed to remain unbeaten with two wins - Revatha
Maha Vidyalaya, Balapitiya and Dharmapala Vidyalaya, Pannipitiya and 16
drawn. In contrast, the Reid Avenue Boys have won three of their 18
outings this season - against De Mazenod, Moratu Vidyalaya and St.
Aloysius. But Royal had gone down to St. Sebastians, Moratuwa. Apart
from that negative note, Royal has more or less the same track record as
their opponents.
The Thomians have a slight edge when it comes to experience as nine
lads from Mount Lavinia School team are coloursmen. Royal have seven
coloursmen in their team and this will be a Battle of the Blues
encounter which would bring a total of 16 coloursmen in action, a rare
feat in a big match.
Royal�s average performance has largely been due to the fact that
they missed two of their most seasoned campaigners - captain Ramith
Rambukwella and former captain Bhanuka Rajapaksa for most part of the
season as the duo were on national duty with Sri Lanka Under-19 team.
The timely return of the top duo will greatly strengthen Royal�s
batting.
They are the batsmen who are capable of changing the rhythm of a game
and would certainly pose additional problems to Thomian bowlers.
On the other hand, Royal does not entirely depend on Rambukwella and
Rajapaksa to keep the scoreboard moving. Apart from the two most
experienced players in the team, the Reid Avenue boys have four other
batsmen who could pose additional problems to Thomian bowlers - Heshan
Kumarasiri (with an aggregate of 938 runs with three centuries and five
fifties), Imal Liyanage (879 runs with ten half centuries), Varuna
Dissanayake (864 runs with five fifties) and Milan Abeysekera (726 runs
with four fifties). These four have shared over 3,500 runs among them
this season and it would be a tall order for the Thomian bowlers. The
Thomian batting has maintained its consistency, despite a couple of ups
and downs. Though they could not boast of a similar high capacity
batting department such as Royal, the Thomians are capable of meeting
the challenge and putting a decent total on the board.
Undoubtedly, the early instructions from Royal skipper to his bowlers
would be to get Nuwan Kavinda early. He is the most dangerous contender
in the Thomian batting line up and he will be looking forward to
complete his magical 1,000-run milestone during the big match. He is
only 70 runs short of that dream milestone.
S. Thomas� captain Chamod Pathirana, his deputy Sachin Peiris and
fresher Asiri Wickremanayake too have shown great form with their willow
and if the trio gets into their brilliant best, Royal will have a
testing time.
Former Royal captain turned coach Gamini Perera is well aware that
his boys have not displayed their true potential this season. But he
hopes that Royal would reach the top gear when it matters the most.
Perera is acutely aware that his boys will be a different kettle of fish
when it comes to the pinnacle of their season.
Former Antonian opener and Sri Lanka �A� player Sajith Fernando feels
that his boys are looking forward for a good competition, �after a great
season�. He knows that the Thomians are no more the underdogs and would
live upto expectations.
But there only three main factors that could greatly change the
pattern of the game, the toss and the form of Rambukwella and Rajapaksa.
If Rambukwella (or even Rajapaksa for that matter) gets set for a
merciless attack like last year, Royal will be top of the pops. Winning
the toss this morning would be a huge bonus and the captain who calls
correct would not hesitate to take the first leave of that perfect
batting strip.
This is the 18th consecutive year that the Mecca of Sri Lanka cricket
- the SSC ground will be hosting the Royal-Thomian cricket encounter.
Since switching back to the SSC in 1994, all matches of the series have
been played at Maitland Place. However, the Royal-Thomian was first
played at the SSC grounds way back in 1975. Overall, the SSC has hosted
25 Royal-Thomian encounters, including the centenary encounter in 1979 -
the year since the Battle of the Blues turned out to be a three-day
affair.
Except for the 1985 game, all matches since 1979 have been three-day
games.
Incidentally, the current ICC Chief Match Referee Ranjan Madugalle
had the honour of leading Royal in that centenary encounter which was a
drawn affair.
The Thomians are fortunate to take a one-match lead in the series
tally through a majority of the past 131 meetings were drawn. S. Thomas`
takes a narrow lead with 34 wins to Royal`s 33 with the rest drawn.
|