Prince and Princess of Wales’ Colleges Moratuwa was founded by one of the then greatest philanthropist of our country devout Anglican and a former Thomian Charles Henry de Soysa in 1876. A keen cricket lover Mr. De Soysa did not forget to give the students of both schools a picturesque ground which runs parallel to the Galle Road in front of the Principal’s bungalow. The same year he introduced cricket to the school.
Upto 1896 the Males of the Academic and non Academic Staffs of the College played friendly cricket matches. Undoubtedly Mr. De Soysa could be called as the, “Father of Moratuwa Cricket” which is a cricket crazy town. With his sudden demise in 1890 the two schools were managed by the “De Soysa Trust” with the blessings and the guidance of the Anglican Church, Holy Emmanuel in Rawatawatte, Moratuwa and in 1896 the then Principal, his son-in-law J. G. C. Mendis organized cricket the same year. Three inter-school matches were played against Royal, S. Thomas’ and Wesley College and to-date they are traditional fixtures annually.
It was almost 59 years ago a formidable Thomian first eleven cricket team under the captaincy of Keith Labrooy travelled down to Moratuwa to take on the Cambrians on their fiery matting wicket. During this period the matches commenced at 12 noon and went upto 6 pm on Fridays and Saturdays. In 1961/62 the Cambrians were captained by gloveman and opening bat Hayasti Aponso with a star studded side including several allrounders such as T. Munasinghe, Ryle de Mel, D.S. de Silva (later Sri Lankan Test and ODI player), Merl Mendis, Raja Peiris, Sarath de Silva, Nimal Cooray (former Air Force all-rounder), Shanthilal de Silva and Priyananda Perera and Dilwin Mendis who was a reserve member of the cricket pool.
The Cambrians with an innings victory against formidable Royal College in the previous weekend at the same venue and Aponso in fine form with a century under his belt against them must have thought they could repeat the same performance against the mighty Thomians.
Batting first the Cambrians piled up 262 with Aponso and Ryle de Mel scoring 64 and 67 runs respectively. Aponso and his deputy Munasinghe put on 55 runs for the first wicket. W. Fernando claimed 5 for 73. In reply the Thomians lost openers Randy Morrel for 11 runs and I. Abeysekera for 19. Then A. Medonza who represented his alma-mater in two Big Matches in 1961 and 1962 went on to complete a brilliant chanceless 102 to pull his side out of trouble. Along with F. Selvathurai (49) he put on a valuable seventh wicket partnership of 66 runs and Thomians were all out for 251 runs giving a slender lead of 11 runs to the host.
In their second essay the Cambrians made a quick declaration in the hope of getting the visitors out soon and declared at 125 for 3 wickets with D. S. de Silva and Aponso scoring an unbeaten 47 and 57 runs respectively and putting on an unfinished 97 runs for the third wicket. Set to make 137 runs for an outright victory the Thomians were 45 for 3 with R. Fernando unbeaten on 27.
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