The Royal-Thomian

Thursday, 7 March 2019 00:57 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The Royal-Thomian (Battle of the Blues) is an annual cricket match played between Royal College, Colombo and St. Thomas’ College, Mount Lavinia since 1879.

The inaugural match took place in 1880, and this first official encounter between the Colombo Academy (now Royal College) and S. Thomas’ College, Mutwal in Modara was played at Galle Face Grounds, which is today the site of the Taj Samudra Hotel.

The match commenced at 4 p.m. each day. The Beira Lake stretched up to the present railway line close to San Sebastian Hill and the two teams rowed across in boats to the Galle Face Grounds. In this first encounter Colombo Academy won by 62 runs. It was the first schoolboy cricket match in Ceylon to be played over three days.

This match is played for the prestigious D. S. Senanayake Memorial Shield. Incidentally, D.S. Senanayake, who became the first Prime Minister of independent Ceylon, donned the Thomian cap in 1901 and 1902. This shield was first presented in 1928.

Efforts underway to make Royal-Thomian the cleanest in history