Thurstan-Isipathana meet in Golden Jubilee Cricket Encounter

Hafiz MARIKAR

The Golden Jubilee Cricket encounter between Thurstan vs Isipathana will take place on Friday and Saturday at the SCC grounds. This encounter commenced in 1964 and thereafter, elevated to a big match in 1968 for the “Blackham Wijewardena Memorial Trophy.

It has been played continuously, annually except in 1971 where the match had to be cancelled due to civil unrest in the country.

Thurstan College leads the series by five matches to four with the rest being drawn. Out of these five wins, three came in consecutive years - 1990-92 when Thurstan College had their dream run. The Limited over series commenced in 1981 where it is played for the W. A. de Silva Memorial Trophy.

The 50th encounter will be played under the patronage President Mahinda Rajapaksa, a distinguished old boy of Thurstan College.

To the credit of Thurstan College it must be said tat it has produced two Sri Lanka cricketers

in Amitha de Costa and Hemantha Boteju and a Test player in Niroshan Bandaratileka while Isipathana has produced Jayantha Paranathala and Uvais Karnain who represented Sri Lanka prior to the country gaining full Test Status. When Sri Lanka gained Test Status the following players Asoka de Silva, Sanjeeva Weerasinghe, Nuwan Zoysa and Suresh Perera represented the country.

Thurstan took to cricket in 1953, and most of their matches were against 2nd string teams of leading Colombo Schools. Thurstan was fortunate that its first Principal Earle Schokman was an ardent cricket fan and gave whatever assistance to uplift the standard of cricket. Due his initiative and promotion by early 1960’s Thurstan were playing first eleven cricket against all leading Colombo schools.

Then in early sixties when the Nationalized Schools Cricket Association [NSCA] toured Australia, four Thurstanites went on three of these tours. In 1961 Harris Perera and Mahanama Wijayaratna, and in 1963 Harris Perera, T N Fernando, and Lalith Pieris in 1965.

Isipathana took up to the game of cricket in 1952 that was their first team to take part. They took the game seriously in 1954. When they started the senior team which had players of fewer than twelve years. That year they played four inter school matches and lost three and one was drawn.

The promoted inter house matches for the first time in 1954 and the champions were Iqbal house. Ashanta de Mel started his cricket at Isipathana in 1978 and played for the Sri Lanka under 19 team, against the Australian team where he took 6 for 74.

Both these schools are blessed over the years with dedicated staff, who have been more than teachers to their students. This has resulted in the students achieving success both in education and sports and excellence in extracurricular activities not second to any of the Old and traditional schools in the country. These schools have also given its students an opportunity to gain knowledge in various disciplines and also show their hidden talents by permitting them to engage in various school societies to show their leadership capabilities in the country after schooling which is now very evident.

The Old Boys organizations of these schools have become vibrant and a force to reckon with at all levels, thus being a hub towards development of the schools to what it is now.