Bhanuka, Ramith strengthen Royal

Dinesh Weerawansa

Royal College, Colombo is determined to overcome minor setbacks suffered during the season and produce their best effort when they take on S Thomas’ College, Mt Lavinia in their 132nd Battle of the Blues three-day cricket encounter which starts at SSC grounds, Colombo on Thursday.

Royal has a formidable side which comprises seven coloursmen though it had not reflected with their performance quite often this season.

They have failed to click together as a team and that was mainly due to the fact that two of the best and most experienced players - skipper Ramith Rambukwella and former captain Bhanuka Rajapaksa had been in an out of the team due to their commitments with the Sri Lanka Under-19 team.

One hopes the return of Rambukwella and Rajapaksa would inspire the team to be in perfect shape for the big match.

Mixed season

The absence of the two ace players forced Royal to enjoy a mixed season. In 18 outings this season, Royal has three wins to their credit over De Mazenod, Moratu Vidyalaya and St Aloysius while losing to St Sebastians, Moratuwa.

Unlike in the previous season, during which he completed that golden milestone of over 1,000 runs, Rambukwella did not get that much of opportunities to play for the Reid Avenue boys. Nevertheless, you don’t know when his willow starts talking and it would be simply unstoppable for any bowler to take this hard-hitting top order batsman. It was during last year’s big ‘un that he proved his class as a merciless hitter of the ball, scoring a fluent century which had Thomian bowlers all at sea.

Hence, Rambukwella is a player who is capable of changing a game and the Reid Avenue boys would be expecting a lot from his willow which has shown no mercy to any bowler, be it at local or international level.

Advantage

The timely return of Rajapaksa too would strengthen Royal line-up and Rajapaksa and Rambukwella are the two players who could make things miserable for the Thomian bowlers.

Royal will depend heavily on Rajapaksa to keep their innings together and his timely return to form would be a big advantage for them. Rajapaksa made two brilliant knocks of 101 against St. Aloysius and 78 against Trinity in Royal’s last two games.

Apart from the two known stroke makers at international level, there have been four other Royal batsmen who have shaped well this season, sharing nearly 3,500 among them this season.

They are Heshan Kumarasiri (with an aggregate of 938 runs with four 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).

In fact fresher Kumarasiri is in perfect nick on his lead up to the big match, having scored twin hundreds against Trinity (103 and 101 n.o) in their last game.

Besides skipper Rambukwella, deputy Imran Khan and former captain Rajapaksa, the other coloursmen in the Royal side are Varuna Dissanayake, Imal Liyanage, Devin Pathmanathan and Gaurav Deva.

Royal’s bowling attack would be spearheaded by left-arm leg breaks of Devin Pathmanathan who has captured 64 wickets this season with an accurate average of 16.4 apiece.

That speaks high volumes of control he had enjoyed against opposing batsmen this season.

He is sure to pose a serious threat to the Thomian batting line-up.

Opening paceman Imran Khan, who apparently has no connection to that great Pakistan fast bowler of yesteryear, has captured over 40 wickets.

Unimpressive

In recent times, Royal have come to the Battle of the Blues on an unimpressive note and had become the decisive force. Similarly, if Royal’s powerful batting machines show their turbo powers, the Reid Avenue boys should be able to enjoy their richest harvest in the big match.

Of course, they will be a different kettle of fish in the most important and decisive outing of the season. No batsman has been able to register a double century in the 132-year-old history of the Battle of the Blues series.

The closest to reach towards that goal were Sumithra Warnakulasuriya and Duleep Mendis. But their feats too had been registered some 31 and 39 years respectively.

Former Sri Lanka ‘A’ player and Sri Lanka ‘A’ coach Warnakulasuriya made a majestic knock of 197 for Royal in 1980. Eight years prior to that feat, Mendis, who went on to lead Sri Lanka, became the highest individual scorer in the series for his brilliant knock of 184 made in 1972.

Interesting

It has been interesting to be a part of the Battle of the Blues series for the 35th consecutive year, initially as a schoolboy at the ‘blue and gold’ from the 98th encounter and then as a sports writer covering the match after leaving college.

During this period, I had the privilege of witnessing my schooldays’ cricketing hero Ranjan Madugalle, now the busy Chief Match Referee of the ICC, leading Royal in the centenary encounter.

My elevation to the pinnacle of journalism as Editor-in-Chief of the Sunday Observer did not stop me performing a reporter’s job due to my passion for sport and the rich culture associated with the Royal-Thomian cricket encounter.

The Royal-Thomian cricket series has long traditions and remarkable achievements which are hard to match. The longest unbeaten era for Royal in the series was from 1965 to 1987.

During the 23-year period without a single big match defeat, Royal emerged victorious on two occasions while the rest of the 21 games were drawn.

Drawn game

Royal`s last back-to-back wins in the series was in 1990 and 1991 under Udaya Lakmal Wijesena and Rohan Irriyagolla respectively.

Having lost the 2007 encounter by an innings and 44-runs inside two days and 95 minutes of play, followed by a drawn game last year, it`s Royal`s turn to pull off a win to level the series, which began way back in 1879. Besides Warnakulasuriya`s dream knock on debut, the only other Royalist to score a `big match century` on debut is Jagath Pattiarachchi (100 n.o in 1974).

Royal also accounts for the highest ever partnership for any wicket in the series - 254 runs (for the third wicket) between Anushka Polonnowita (164) and Yasas Dharmarathne (124) in 1996.

Nigel Fernando is the youngest ever Royal captain in the series.

He was only six days short of his 17th birthday when he led the Reid Avenue school in 1989. Of the 131 encounters played todate, S.Thomas` takes a lead with 34 wins to Royal`s 33 with the rest drawn.