After a low scoring encounter between the two schools at the last year’s 1^st XI Cricket season, players from both, Royal and St. Benedict’s were looking forward for a good match as they met up once again this year, at Reid Avenue on the 20^th and 21^st of January 2015.

The visitors had luck going their way, as they won the toss and sent Royal in to bat first. Capitalizing on the opportunity of making first use on a good batting wicket, the Royal openers took their side to a firm start, getting 82 runs without losing a wicket at the end of the 29^th over, with both the openers Hasitha Samarasinghe and Naveen Widanapathirana equally scoring 39 runs each. The partnership continued after lunch as the pair took Royal to an unbeaten 99 before Hasitha was judged LBW one short of his half-century, and one run short of an opening stand of 100 runs. The fall of the first wicket brought the Vice captain Geeshath Panditharathne to the middle.

Royal successfully managed to go past their 1^st innings score from the last season which was 103/10, this time for the loss of just one wicket, and were looking at a big 1^st innings total at their home ground. Naveen was batting strongly at one end, even though runs came slow along with the falling of wickets at regular intervals at the other end. Naveen Widanapathirana managed to complete his century, well supported by his team mates before he fell after scoring 115 runs. But with the foundation set, the lower middle order had nothing much to do but quicken the run rate for declaration to come in time, and they did just that. Royal were 257 for 4 as Thiran Danapala and skipper Harith Samarasinghe were accelerating the scoring rate, just fast enough for the declaration at 284 for the loss of 6 wickets, with an adequate number of overs remaining to test the patience of the batsmen of St. Benedict’s College. The openers were the highest scorers for Royal with Naveen Widanapathirana scoring 115, and Hasitha Samarasinghe scoring 49 runs, with Ruvinda Niwunalla and Geethika Jayathilake getting two wickets a piece conceding 32 runs and 75 runs respectively. At stumps, St. Benedict’s College was 36 for one wicket trailing by 248 runs.

Day 2 started off well for both the sides, since Royal managed to get a few wickets, while the batsmen were scoring at a healthy rate. At lunch the visitors were 108/3 trailing by 176, with Randev Pathirana and Helitha Withanage being the wicket takers for Royal taking 2 wickets, and 1 wicket respectively. As play continued after lunch, Nelson came into play once again as the visitors lost their 4^th wicket for 111 runs at the hands of Lasith Embuldeniya. St. Benedict’s College lost half their side at 140 trailing by 144, but a good batting display by the lower middle order saw them through the days play as the game concluded at 270 when the boys from Kotahena were bowled out for 270 runs, still 14 runs short of Royal’s mammoth 1^st innings total of 284.

A much better game of cricket compared to the last year’s encounter concluded, with both the teams having learnt a lot throughout the process. Royal were to tour Kandy up next to take on the mighty Anthonians by the end of the week. The Big match was just 50 days away.