Following a outright win in the up country against St. Anthony’s College, the Royalists once again went away from their home ground at Reid Avenue, to take on De Mazenod College, Kandana. The match took place on the 1st and 2nd of February 2015.

The De Mazenodians won the toss early in the morning, on the first day of February 2015, when they opted to let the Royalists take first use of the fresh wicket. Royal, capitalizing on that, just as they did at the match against St. Benedict’s College, made the De Mazenodian captain Malshan Fernando re-think his decision of putting Royal into bat first as they got a quick opening partnership of 53 runs within the first 35 balls without losing a wicket. They soon hit the 100 mark for the loss of just one wicket. However a quick tumble of wickets saw the Royalists walking into the dressing room at 160/4 for lunch. The highest scorer for Royal in the first session being Hasitha Samarasinghe as he scored 57 off 66 balls before nicking one to the keeper.

The session after lunch seemed to be a very successful one for Royal, as they went past the 250 mark only at the expense of the 2 wickets of Chamika Karunarathne and Randev Pathirana. Umesh Sooriyanbandara and vice captain Geeshath Panditharathne who was on 86, were batting strong as the players took tea when the scoreboard read 289/6.

The 3rd session on day 1 brought in the declaration by the visitors, not before they’ve reached a score of 300+ courtesy of the vice captain who scored 126 off 206 balls, well supported by the number 6 batsman Umesh Sooriyabandara who obtained a half century (51 off 79) and Helitha Vithanage who scored 30 off 54 balls. Rukshan Fernando was the pick of the bowlers for De Mazenod College for his scalp of 5 wickets. Royal declared at 347/8 with just over 10 overs remaining for the day. However the breakthrough expected by Royal may not have come, as the De Mazenodians scored 90 runs for the loss of 2 wickets at the end of day 1, trailing by 257.

Day 2 started off with a wicket for Royal, but still wasn’t enough to restrict or lower the run rate of the home side. The batting side was 130 for 3, which went up to 237/7 ultimately going up to 286 where they were bowled out giving Royal a first innings lead of 61 runs. Spinner Lasith Embuldeniya got 4 wickts for Royal at the cost of 82 runs while skipper Harith Samarasinghe and Chandula Weliwita got 2 wickets each.

However, when Royal came out to bat again, there didn’t seem to be much time to generate a result off this match, which made the Royalists bat till close of play extending their lead to 221 runs, scoring 160 foor the loss of 4. Hasitha Samarasinghe once again managed to obtain a half century, attaining 72 runs at the 2nd innings. Thus, the match concluded in a Draw.

Good all-round performance at this match indeed may have lifted the spirit of the Royalists going into the next match of the season against St. Peter’s College in 4 days.