History of the Battle of the Blues takes shape

Royal-Thomian organising committee to publish commemorative book

The Royal College Union in liaison with the S.Thomas’ College Old Boys Association has decided to put forward the ‘History of the 125 years of the Royal-S.Thomas’ cricket match’ in the form of a book to commemorate the impending landmark next year.

The Royal-Thomian joint organising committee plans to trace the long standing history of the series billed as the second longest running cricket fixture in the world along with the score cards of all matches played from it’s inception in 1880 to 2003.

These details were revealed to the press by M. Balasubramaniam, Chairman of the Royal-Thomian Joint Organising Committee held at a press briefing at Ceylinco Chairman’s office at Bambalapitiya on Thursday.

Balasubramaniam said the Royal-Thomian cricket match which will approach it’s 125th year in 2004 has established itself as an institution more than an event in the minds of all Royalists and Thomians, past and present, including their families and friends etc.

He said the match next year would have great historic value to the followers of the game, with the milestone the series is bound to reach. Hence, the decision taken by his committee to publish a book of this magnitude.

Balasubramaniam pointed out that the tome, jointly sponsored by the Ceylinco Insurance Company and Seylan Bank and which is expected to hit the bookstores in October this year, will contain reminiscences of absorbing and abiding interest and statistics updated to 2003 and profusely illustrated with team pictures.

It is therefore destined to be a collector’s item on the book shelf of every Royalist and Thomian with over 2500 books to be printed and distributed locally and overseas.

M. Balasubramaniam said the ‘History of the Royal-S.Thomas’ Cricket Match’ book will be supervised by two old boys namely, CH Gunasekera of Royal and Nihal Gunaratne of S.Thomas’ College.

There will also be a few limited-overs fixtures which will be worked off among the old Royalists and Thomians over the 30 age group, along with matches for the tutorial staff of the two schools at Reid Avenue and Mount Lavinia respectively.

A raffle draw is also expected to be held in the lead-up to the big match, with attractive prizes to be won.

Deshamanya Lalith Kotalawela, Chairman of the Board of Ceylinco Insurance Company and Seylan Bank said " When we were approached by the Joint Central Committee to sponsor the printing of this publication we had no hesitation to do so. I am a Royalist and R Renganathan my Managing Director is a Thomian. (JK)