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by Sudat Pasqual

On January 27, 2003 at a press briefing held at the Royal College Sports Complex school authorities of Royal College and Ananda College, two of the nation's premier institutions of learning, revealed plans to introduce a trophy for the schools' annual cricket encounter named after one of Royal's most illustrious principals L. D. H. Peiris who also happened to be a distinguished alumni of Ananda College. Considering, it is deemed fitting that the two schools would consider honouring the name of a man who had a hand in the success of both schools. The first encounter for the trophy will be played this weekend at Royal College grounds on the 31st of January and the 1st of February.

L. D. H. Peiris had his primary education at Ananda College and later went to obtain a Bachelor of Science degree from University College, Colombo in the 1940s. After his undergraduate studies, Mr. Peiris joined the tutorial staff of his alma mater Ananda College and taught Science and Mathematics in the senior section. During his tenure at Ananda, Peiris also served as a master in the College Hostel. Later in his career, Peiris rose through the ranks of the education service to the position of Director of Education. Peiris finished his distinguished career in education as the Principal of Royal College whom he served tirelessly from 1972 to 1980.

It must be said that during Peiris' tenure at Royal, the school excelled both in the classroom and on the playground. During his tenure the school produced many a distinguished scholar as well as numerous outstanding athletes. Peiris was a hard but affair taskmaster who expected, and in most cases received, 100% commitment to the school at all times. Those who had the honour and the privilege to be part of Royal College during Peiris' tenure, remembers their school time as the golden days of their youth.

Royal and Ananda have been playing against each other in Cricket since 1910. However, the encounters became permanent in nature beginning in 1956. Royal won the 1956 encounter between the two schools. Royal was led by Fitzroy Crozier in this match and Ananda by Mahinda Jayasinghe (later to become a doctor of medicine). The stars of the match for Royal were B. Gunaratne who took a match bag of 10 wickets and Ranjith de Silva (now a famous surgeon) who top scored in the Royal 2nd innings with 43 (incidentally this was the highest individual score for the match) and also chipped in with 3 wickets.

The win and lost tally for the two schools stands at 6 wins for Royal and 1 win for Ananda with 36 matches drawn and four matches considered as incomplete for unavoidable reasons. The last Royal win was in 1985 under Heshan de Silva and Ananda's sole win came in 1960 under the captaincy of Yatagama Amaradasa. During the history of the encounter there has been numerous noteworthy performances with both the bat and the ball from each side. Below is a brief re-cap of some significant milestones of Royal-Ananda encounter.

Highest Individual Score - 162 runs by Marvan Attapattu in 1990 for Ananda, 155 not out by P. N. S. Kariyawasam in 1974 for Royal.

Highest Team Total - 327 for 8 wickets by Royal in 1979, 301 for 9 wickets by Ananda in 1990.

Best Bowling Performance - 7 for 15 by Mahinda Wijesinghe in 1957.

Father and Son Captains - Anuruddha Polonowita - Ananda 1957, Anushka Polonowita - Royal 1995.

The guests of honour for the inaugural match will be two individuals who participated in the match of 1956 from both schools.

Ananda College will be represented by the Captain of the 1956 team Dr. Mahinda Jayasinghe and Dr. Ranjith de Silva (one of the architects of Royal's win in 1956) will represent the school in the absence of his skipper Fitzroy Crozier who is domiciled in Australia. In addition seven members of the 1956 Ananda College team will grace the occasion with their presence. Prefects of both schools will be on duty during the match. Also, 50 distinguished guests from both schools will be hosted for tea on the second day. At the conclusion of the match, the son of late L. D. H. Peiris, Jagath Peiris, will present the trophy to the winner. Considering the historic nature of the occasion, this week's encounter should be a keenly contested one and should be well attended by supporters of both schools. Both teams will be keen to be the recipient of the trophy on the first occasion. More importantly, considering the colourful histories of both these institutions, it is expected that the match will be played in the best of spirits. For as in life, in sports too it is not the win but how one plays the game that matters most.

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