The 1st XI Cricket encounter between Royal College and Dharmaraja College, Kandy concluded in a draw last Saturday (15th) at the Royal College Grounds.

It was a fine morning on Friday the 14th of November 2014, when the team bus from Kandy reached Reid Avenue. The Dharmarajans were greeted with the warmth of the sun which was just creeping out from within the clouds. It was great cricketing conditions out here in Colombo. The fielders from Royal stepped on to the morning breeze first, after their captain Harith Samarasinghe won the toss only to let the visitors bat first. The decision proved to be successful with Royal drawing first blood in the first over itself, and 6 more for just 104 runs by lunch! However the Dharmarajan tail-enders did not give up that soon, and kept the score board ticking till it reached 197. Skipper Harith Samarasinghe and Lasith Embuldeniya bagged 3 wickets each.

The second session of day 1 concluded with Royal going into tea unbeaten, trailing by 190 runs. The days proceedings was interrupted at around 4.30pm due to rain when the scoreboard was reading 39/1, thus it was called stumps for day 1, with Royal trailing by 158 runs.

Day two, too seemed to be in perfect condition for cricket and the match commenced on time with the Royal batsmen coming out to bat at around 10.00 in the morning. The first session of day 2 was quite successful with Royal scoring 99 runs only losing 4 wickets. The next 65 runs came in fast with Randev Pathirana scoring a quick fire 67, while Naveen Widanapathirana assisted him well with a patient knock of 50 runs. The declaration came when Royal had 203 on the board for the loss of 8 wickets, having a first innings lead of 6 runs.

The 2nd innings of Dharmaraja College started in disaster with the fall of 3 wickets without even a run on the board. Himesh Ramanayake proved to be the star of this breakthrough after getting rid of two Dharmarajan batsmen within one over! However the batsmen who followed repaired the early blunder guiding their team towards a safe total. The umpires called stumps at around 5 O’clock when Dharmarajans had scored 128/7, with Himesh Ramanayake picking up 3 wickets and Lasith Embuldeniya bagging 2 wickets. Thus, the match was declared a Draw!

Even though this was just the 3rd encounter for Royal in the 2014/15 cricket season, it is clearly evident that the youngsters have stepped up to the task, especially after the era of Pathmanadans and Tillerkerathnes… With a splendid all-round performance at home, the road to big match seems quite clear!