Sri Lanka Schools: Memories of Josephian-Peterite encounter (12 March 1999)
(The cricket that was played then was very gentlemanly in and out of the field and the cricketing spirit prevailed as both teams tried very hard honorably to outbeat the other, but never was a moment of enmity, unseemly words or stares at opponents
12-Mar-1999
12 March 1999
Sri Lanka Schools: Memories of Josephian-Peterite encounter
The Daily News
(The cricket that was played then was very gentlemanly in and out of
the field and the cricketing spirit prevailed as both teams tried
very hard honorably to outbeat the other, but never was a moment of
enmity, unseemly words or stares at opponents or loud shouts and
appeals with hands held up at the umpire seen; umpire's word was
law-a lesson for modern cricket now showing more discord and
cricketing misbehaviour full of scorn, anger, revenge, emotional
dishonour etc all displaying bad sportsmanship and showing us how
'cricket as it should not be played Cricket as a game for the glory
of sport cannot be polluted by unfair victories or commercialised
with much cash in it and also over - ridden with powerhungry
(fake?) cricket controllers).
Let me now briefly state what we saw, how we played and conquered
(true, lost by runs, yet won in spirit - It was in the year 1945 at
the old SSC new turf wicket around the present Municipal grounds.
Self was a GCE (AL) student and was privileged to play in the
Peterite team. The one and only S.P. Foenander, the world renowned
cricket correspondnet had given his commentaries on school cricket -
the schoolboys in particular read the impartial criticisms with
interest.
As the St. Peter's buildings and grounds had been taken over by the
military to run an army hospital, we had to manage our cricket on
make shift cricket ground at Frazer Avenue, Dehiwela. Our team led by
Anton Pertera had done very well against Royal, Ananda, Bendicts etc.
As such we noticed that the Josephians led by Neil Weerasinghe were
often seen observing the tactics, strengths and weak points of the
stalwarts in the Peterites - Anton, Maurice, Sylvester, D. Walles and
self were earmarked. As most of us were playing on turf for the first
time we had two practices on the SSC turf. Herbert Wittachy, our
coach and the great ruggerite who had a broken collarbone and our
sporty Prefect of Games, Fr. Alex Ranasinghe who 'bribed', rather
motivated us with ice-cream regularly were on the spot to inspire us
to outplay the Josephians in the match.
The match evinced a lot of interest as young St. Peters, the
erstwhile, then young sibling of St. Joseph's the very old brother,
may beat Josephs for the first time. True it did not happen because
the Josephians were well armed to withstand and outplay the Peterites
who seemed to rests on their laurels, as quoted by the Observer and
Times.
The great Dodwell Soysa was one of the Umpireswhat a great
disciplinarian and an impartial cricketing judge he was!! -a model
for those who don the white coat now. Yes we lost the match as we
could not reach the 250 odd runs left to us in the second innings. I
still remember the great efforts made by our captain Anton with the
bat and the off spinners bowled by his brother, Maurice could not
disturb the great knocks by the Mels, Joe, Cletus etc and the wiles
in bowling of Neil Weerasinghe etc. True self also failed - having
stayed at the batting crease for more than an hour for a megre 20
runs going in at the fall of the 1st wicketunfortunately my partner
at the other end, De Zouza was feeling feverish and was not able to
do much running between wickets. We lost more than 50 runs. The top
spinners and legbreaks that I bowled on turf for the first time gave
no return. At the end of the match we gave three hearty cheers to the
Josephians and after a sumptuous dinner at the SSC pavilion we had
all to walk back about 5 miles to Dehiwela as the private bus driver
was not able to stay late hours.
In any case we enjoyed our journey back not as losers but having
played a good match for the 'great scorer to record not how we won or
lost but how we played the game'. The walk was made joyful by the
song that had been coined for the match.
I can remember a few lines of the song we rendered 54 years ago:-
"From the grounds of Frazer avenue, we have marched to the SSC
We have waged St. Peter's battles and marched to victory,
Admiration of our College, We are the finest in the fold
We have shouted out at every match one for all and all for one..".
Source :: Daily News (https://www.lanka.net)