It was a warm morning at the lush serenity of the Royal College Cricket Grounds. Both teams were ready to battle it out on the grounds for the Sir Frank Gunasekera Memorial Shield. Wesley College had last won it in 2012, and since then were retaining it for the past 2 years.

The game began with Wesley College winning the toss and choosing to field. With Royal’s opening batsmen Hasitha Samarasinghe and Naveen Withanapathirana at the crease, the match saw a solid start as they began a slow game of collecting runs. However a top order collapse saw Royal at 77-4 by lunch time. Following lunch a strong play by Royal courtesy of Randev Pathirana and Chamika Karunaratne saw the score rising to 214-7 by tea time. Royal’s play ended with the declaration at 235-8.

The Wesley batting side had an early misfortune with 9-2 with Himesh Ramanayake taking out the first wicket. The slow retaliation by Wesley was again soon halted with Chamika taking two wickets putting the visitors at 42-3. Soon the spectators witnessed Captain Harith Samarasinghe and Lasith Embuldeniya taking another wicket each, with the latter reaching his 50 wicket mark for the season. The day ended with a favourable result for Royal, with Wesley 89-8 against Royal’s solid 235-8.

Next morning saw a quick end of Wesley’s first innings, with the Royal bowlers pulling their game up to end Wesley innings short at all out for 93 runs. The visitors had to Follow-on due to the low 1^st innings total, and their second innings began on a slow rise as they held on for 18-0. But soon Royal’s Lasith Embuldeniya once again showed colours on the field with 26-2, both being taken by him. By lunch Wesley were at 51-3 with Harith taking the third wicket. Wesley began a good game as they picket their score up to 140-5 within a short time. Lasith was soon back in play along with the other Royal bowlers as they halted them at 141-8 shortly afterwards. The match ended with Captain Harith taking the last wicket cutting out Wesley at 172.

The 2^nd inning of Royal had an easy target which was soon caught up with Royal scoring 34-1, with a boundary off the last ball chasing just 31 runs, thus regaining the Trophy at Reid Avenue after the absence of 3 years. The Stanley Jayasekara Memorial Trophy for the Best Bowling performance was won by Royal spinner Lasith Embuldeniya for his 8 wickets throughout the 2 innings, 3 in the first and a 5 in the second.

Royal indeed has gained its momentum back, but the team will be looking into improving many aspects of their game before going into the next match against Prince of Wales College in a week’s time.

Match Summary

Toss: Wesley, who chose to field first.

Umpires: Mr. Sena Nandaweera & Mr. Sunil Salunadana

Scorers: Derky Fernando & Deshan Fernando

Result: Royal College won by 9 wickets.