The sixth death anniversary of Nimal Cooray former Cambrian, Sri Lanka Air Force and Adastrian all round cricketer, soccer player and cricket coach and Defence Services Cricket umpire fell on 28 May 2018. He died at the age of 69 years and had his entire education at Prince of Wales’ College Moratuwa. He later joined the then Royal Ceylon Air Force in November 1963. Though he was one class Junior to me at college I too happened to be a member of his Air Force 25th Batch of Recruits and a member of the cricket teams in time to time.
Whilst at school he played for the under 12, 14, 16 first eleven and captained the second eleven cricket team in 1961. He played in the Big Match in 1961 under Lister Perera in the absence of Roy Cooray and later three of his brothers Lakdasa, Srinath and Mahesh too played in the big matches, which is a record for the Cambrians. Later Yasendra de Silva, Sarath, Manjusri and Bandula too played in the big matches. Though I attended practices I was a reserve player in all these teams and was in the first eleven cricket squad for three years under W. G. Fernando, Roy Cooray and Hayasti Aponso as a reserve and never played College cricket.
After our Combat and Military Training at Diyatalawa we were drafted to Katunayake for our Trade Training in 1964. During this period Air Force had only one Division Two team (Donovan Andree Trophy) and two Daily News teams. The Division Two cricket team was captained by former Anandian Siri “Charlie” Amarasinghe and the two Daily News teams were led by former Commander Harry Gunatillake and past Thomian Aubrey Ebert. Nimal easily walked into the team led by Harry Gunathillake and I managed to play under Aubrey Ebert. He excelled well with the bat as well as the ball and was also a very fine close in fielder. After the conclusion of the tournament he was selected to play for the Inter Services Tournament where the Airmen won the trophy after a lapse of several years.
In the same year he was an automatic choice for the Division Two team under K. M. Nelson and I too happened to be a member of the same team when Air Force won the Division Two title comfortably winning nine out of ten matches in the 1965/66 season. Nimal played a major role for its success. Now five decades have elapsed and Air Force has not won a major trophy. The same year due to a controversy in the Sara Trophy a two day tournament was introduced for the Cecil Horan Trophy by the Board of Cricket for Ceylon and Air Force came up to the final and lost to formidable Colts Cricket Club led by evergreen Brian de Silva. This final game was confined to a limited over match of 50 overs and Nimal too played. This is the first ever tournament match played in the then Ceylon where the Air Force and Colts Cricket Club were involved.
Nimal was a middle order bat and a medium pace bowler and in the latter stages he opened batting. He toured India and Gan Islands with the Air Force teams and captained his unit on several occasions and played soccer at inter unit level. He was in the Defence Services Umpires Panel as well.
He represented Air Force from 1966 to 1980 in the Sara Trophy and his first captain was two times baby of the Nalanda cricket team Donald Perera. Later he was vice captain to Mohamed Faleel in the Sara Trophy.
He was appointed as captain of the Air Force division two team in 1980. After leaving the Air Force in 1985 he joined the Security Division of Commercial Bank in 2003 and later coached the college cricket academy for sometime on the invitation of the then Principal of Methodist High School Puwakaramba Hemachandra Perera and a past cricket stalwart of the same school Edwin Fernando. Both of us commenced cricket and coached them in the under 13, 15 and 17 free of charge for 12 years.
Nimal was a devout Anglican and he left his wife Doreen and only daughter on 26 May 2012.
“May the turf lie lightly on my school mate, cricketing friend and Air Force colleague.” There is a saying that “Old Soldiers Never Die They Just Fade Away”.
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