When Nimal lost his place because of birthday

We often read in the newspapers today of a school protesting against a rival school for having included in its team a player or players no eligible to play for various reasons. The matter is inquired into by a Board or sometimes even by a Court of Law. Witnesses give evidence, documents are produced and an order is made.

It might interest your readers to hear of two incidents that occurred at Trinity when C J Oorloff was principal.

The seventeenth birthday of a Trinity under - 17 rugger player fell on the day on which the Trinity-Thomian under 17 rugger match was to be played in Colombo.

This had escaped the notice of the Master In Charge when the team was being selected and the boy himself had not disclosed it to the master. The boy was selected to play in the match and he travelled to Colombo with the team and played in the match on his seventeenth birthday. The match was won comfortably by Trinity.

The following week it came to light that the boy was over-age when he played in the match.

Mr Oorloff summoned the boy and took disciplinary action and he wrote to the Warden of S Thomas’ informing him that a boy who was over-age had played in the Trinity team and he offered to replay the match without the offender. The Warden, of course, did not want a replay and the matter ended there.

Nimal Maralande was the Trinity cricket captain in 1959. Nimal's birthday was on March 16 and that year his twentieth birthday fell just a few days before the Trinity-Antonian cricket match.

Under the rules in force at that time a boy had to be under 20 years when he played for his school. Nimal was therefore not eligible to play in the match and the Trinity team was captained by Malsiri Kurukulasuriya.

Such were the standards maintained by School principals of that era.

J L P Perera