St Joseph’ s Colombo prolific scorer Hiran Jayasundara became the first batsman from any school in the history to score a double century against Royal in their traditional cricket encounter which ended in a draw at Darley Road last Saturday.
According to Royal College records, the 199 scored by Roshan. David from Wesley (1990) remained the highest score by a batsman from a rival school against Royal until Jayasundara scored the double century. His unbeaten knock of 200 runs came in 309 balls (18x4s, 3x6s). Actually Hiran was unbeaten on 156 at the end of the first day’s play on Friday .When Daily News contacted Hiran after the first day’s play he said he never wanted to go for personal milestone and like to declare the innings to get positive results.I think Royalists were on the field throughout the day and I don’t like to continue my innings added Hiran Jayasundara. However further one hour was batted by the Josephian team in the first session of the second day and Hiran Jayasundara completed his double century to enter record book.
The school coaches always don’t like to lose the game as they will lose their post while some coaches are doing very unfair things to save the matches. Daily News learnt that the game between St Joseph’s and Mahanama played at Katunayake last week there was a ugly incident. The opponent team coach and captain came to see the wicket and a player cracked the wicket from his boots and this was noted by the Josephians. However school cricket Association has conducted an inquiry and they hope to give the final decision after Schools cricket Exco approval and if any school do this type of work it’s very unfair for this gentleman’ s game.
Going back to Hiran Jayasundara’ s achievement once again, the Josephian also broke nearly a century old batting record in the historic Royal-St. Josephs series as he took under his belt the record for the highest individual score overtaking the 194 runs scored by L.D.S Gunasekara for Royal in 1925. The Josephian record in the series was the 174 runs scored by Milroy Brohier in 1952. The Joes amassed 414 runs for six wickets against Royal. The Royalists made 311 for seven wickets at close in the 126th encounter, which is one of the oldest traditional matches in the country which ended in a draw at Darley Road.
Hiran Jayasundara has showed his potential with a fine batting display while his coach Dilan Ramanayake who was the former St Joseph’s opener always gives his best to show good talents from young Josepeians and Rector Fr Ranjith Andradi ,Master in charge Asiri Caldera and other supportive staff give encouragement to St Joseph’s team who were the last year’s Tier A champions.
Add new comment