Features
Anatomy of a Match: The Royal Thomian Up Close (Part I)
By Uditha Devapriya and Uthpala Wijesuriya
A cricket match that exists beyond cricket, the Royal Thomian is one of the most celebrated sports encounters in South Asia – and the world.
“Everyone turns into a different being here.”
A spectator at the Royal Thomian
A Historical Outline
The Royal Thomian is Sri Lanka’s most popular cricket encounter, more popular than the many test and ODI matches that dot the island nation’s sports calendar. It unfolds every March, customarily on a Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
Every year, Old Boys take the first chance they get to return home, like a pilgrimage, through whatever way they can, to meet long lost friends, share a beer, sing, dance, and cheer. Yet while cricket occupies a secondary place there, the match itself occupies an important place in the history of the sport in Sri Lanka – and in South Asia.
Like tea plantations, public schools, and the civil service, cricket came to Sri Lanka through European colonisers, specifically the British. And like all things British, it was introduced by the colonisers to help insulate themselves from the locals.
In India, the first cricket clubs were formed in 1792. Four years later, the British annexed Sri Lanka, then known as Ceylon, from the Dutch.
Despite a promising start, cricket took time to get fully established in Ceylon. The island’s first cricket club was formed only in 1832. As in India, it came to be restricted to a narrow circle, including colonial officials, the military, and plantation owners.
This was a crucial period in the island’s history. In 1833, the British government appointed a Commission of Inquiry to assess the state of the country’s administration.
The Commission made several recommendations. Among these was the establishment of a public school to impart an English education and prepare the sons of elites for the civil service. In 1835, that school, the Colombo Academy, opened in the capital Colombo. Forty six years later it obtained a Royal decree, and was renamed Royal College.
Manned by Anglican missionaries and British headmasters, these schools promoted European culture and Western values. Sport, particularly cricket, became markers of social status, distancing their students from the world outside. The models adopted were invariably British, with Eton and Harrow as the preferred prototypes. Their clientele, so to speak, were the sons of planters, administrators, and chieftains.
In 1851 the Anglican Diocese of Colombo founded S. Thomas’ College. Unlike the Colombo Academy, which was non-denominational, the College sought to impart a religious education. In 1864, it held what is now regarded as the first school match in the country, where it managed to record an eight-run victory.
The Royal Thomian’s long saga commenced when the Colombo Academy appointed Ashley Walker, an Old Boy of Westminster College and a graduate of Cambridge – a Cambridge Blue, to boot – as a mathematics tutor in 1877.
Walker, celebrated today as the father of Ceylonese cricket, was soon appointed as Boarding Master at the Academy. He went out of his way to promote cricket at school and to this end formed a rather formidable student team.
Having developed the sport in the Academy, Walker then wrote to the Sub-Warden of S. Thomas’, outlining his plan for an inter-collegiate encounter.
The first recorded fixture of the “Academy versus College” match, as it was called at the time, took place in 1879, with Walker captaining the Academy. The Academy won the toss and elected to bat. At the day’s close, it emerged champions.
At the first match, the teams from both schools comprised of teachers and students. The format changed the following year when the students took the lead. The Academy prevailed at this encounter as well, with a lead of 62 runs.
From the beginning, the match took on the character of a social event, with the active if obligatory participation of the upper class. By now, the British experiment of implanting Western civilisation in the country had proved immensely successful.
In this regard, for the upper classes, sport, in particular cricket, became more than just a game. Elite schools served a pivotal function in moulding their attitudes from an early age. At such institutions, cricket thus became a marker of social status.
As the years progressed, the schools and the match produced many of the country’s leading figures, including lawyers, doctors – and the country’s leaders.
In 1928 the match was rechristened the Senanayake Shield. Its namesake, D. S. Senanayake, who had played for S. Thomas’ more than 20 years earlier, would wind up as independent Ceylon’s first Prime Minister 20 years later.
1979 marked the centenary of the match. At the end of the Royal Thomian that year, the then Sri Lankan President, J. R. Jayewardene, who had played for Royal in 1925, granted permission to change it from a two-day to its current three-day format. Since then the match has been played without any major modifications.
This is, admittedly, an all too brief historical summary. Yet it underlies at least three essential points about the Royal Thomian. First, in the words of fervent Old Boys and diehard fans, it has “stopped for nothing.” Not even two World Wars have managed to stop it – even if, as 2021 and 2022 showed, it has had its share of delays and postponements. That has sealed it with a posterity enjoyed by very few other cricket matches elsewhere.
Second, such historical legacies tend to provoke the most passionate emotions – as they did in 2020, when the then President, facing a crisis during COVID-19, revealed at a meeting that he had asked the organisers to call the match off over health concerns. Ironically, in 2021, it was to the President’s nephew, the then Sports Minister, that a group of concerned Old Boys presented a petition, urging the government to grant permission to hold the match and help maintain “the distinction the encounter has had for generations.”
Royal-Thomian fashions in 1893
Third, and perhaps most significantly, the match serves as a backdrop or a culmination to a series of other events – each with their own histories behind them – which unfold like a ritual every March – lending themselves to the moniker “March Madness.”
Today, cricket, like every other facet of life in Sri Lanka, has become more grounded in Sri Lankan society: a far cry from what it used to be under colonial rule. This has been no less true of the Royal Thomian – though it has managed to maintain its elite veneer.
Class, Politics, and Baila
For all intents and purposes, the Royal Thomian is not just a cricket match. But to define it in terms of what it is not, is to ponder on what it is. That, however, depends on who you ask and what perspective you adopt. Perhaps the best way of defining it without essentialising it would be to examine the many contradictions that underlie it.
To outsiders, the Royal Thomian appears as a gathering of a social elite, a class which sees itself as superior to everyone else. But to insiders, there are no such demarcations: all those who make themselves part of the proceedings eventually fall in line with the mood of the event. “There’s nothing classist about the match,” one Old Boy, beer can in hand, says. His friend cheerily agrees: “It doesn’t matter where you come from.”
Certainly, the Royal Thomian – with its cacophony of baila, drinking, and endless merriment – is a far cry from what it used to be in the early 20th century. Back then – lodged between the Victorian and Edwardian eras – the event resembled an Ascot race, with sharply tailored suits and top hats all around. That era has long gone.
To be sure, students take pride in its elite character, and do everything to maintain its status. But that quality doesn’t really come out on the field or the many tents on both sides of the field. This is because the elite have their preferred spaces at the match: prominently at the Mustangs Tent, the male-only club with a history of more than a 100 years attracting the highest echelons of Sri Lankan society.
From corporate heads to heads of state to parliamentarians, everyone with a pass come to these corners and spaces to socialise, sing, dance, and cheer. Here, traditional rivalries transform into perennial friendships. It’s not unusual to spot MPs – Sri Lanka is an electoral democracy – who make a career out of bickering with each other, dancing, singing, even holding arms. Occasionally the members of these tents invite special guests: this year, it was the Indian High Commissioner and the US Ambassador.
Some of the invitees leave feeling dazed. As one former Ambassador recalls:
“Part of my work involved visiting government Ministers and Opposition lawmakers. They invariably badmouth each other. Seeing them hang out with each other so casually at the tent confused me. It almost felt like a drama.”
Old Boys, even students, would defend such contradictions on the grounds that the Royal Thomian is no place for politics: if you are part of the crowd – if you are an Old Boy – you bond with one another. And yet, these paradoxes invite their fair share of criticisms, with some accusing the match – and not altogether inaccurately – as whitewashing the excesses of the political elite, many of whom hail from either of the two schools.
It would be naive to claim that politics plays no part at the Royal Thomian. It does, often in not-so subtle or diplomatic ways. The 2015 encounter, for instance, unfolded three months after what was dubbed as a “Royalist coup”: the election of a government, most of whose Ministers had been educated at Royal College.
Indeed, as one newspaper editor pointed out at the time, “the subtext [of the match was] that these people were back in charge now.”
Responding to the charge, one MP bluntly agreed and added, “We’re bringing with us the values we learned at these schools: inclusiveness and common decency.”
Historically, the match has served as a backdrop for elite politics. For much of its post-independence period, the political leadership in Sri Lanka – Ceylon until it became a Republic in 1972 – shifted between two main parties, the United National Party (UNP) and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP). Most of the country’s leaders hailed from leading schools, including Royal and S. Thomas’. The situation has changed today: there is more room for those from outside elite circles to enter the corridors of power.
It would be amiss to view elite schools as being immune to these developments. Such institutions have, in their own way, accommodated the social and political changes that have swept through the country since independence.
Still, the charge that events like the Royal Thomian are gathering spaces for the elite has managed to stick, the result being that social media users get hostile when match season is around the corner. Often they decry the match as a “snooty” affair.
To Be Continued Next Week
Uditha Devapriya is an international relations analyst, researcher, and freelance columnist who can be reached at udakdev1@gmail.com.
Uthpala Wijesuriya is a law and international relations student and history researcher who can be reached at wijesuriyau6@gmail.com.
Uditha and Uthpala are the two leads of U & U, an informal Sri Lankan collective that engages in art and culture research. Twitter handle: @uanduthoughts.
by Dr Gotabhya Ranasinghe
Senior Consultant Cardiologist
National Hospital Sri Lanka
When we sought a meeting with Hon Dr. Ramesh Pathirana, Minister of Health, he graciously cleared his busy schedule to accommodate us. Renowned for his attentive listening and deep understanding, Minister Pathirana is dedicated to advancing the health sector. His openness and transparency exemplify the qualities of an exemplary politician and minister.
Dr. Palitha Mahipala, the current Health Secretary, demonstrates both commendable enthusiasm and unwavering support. This combination of attributes makes him a highly compatible colleague for the esteemed Minister of Health.
Our discussion centered on a project that has been in the works for the past 30 years, one that no other minister had managed to advance.
Minister Pathirana, however, recognized the project’s significance and its potential to revolutionize care for heart patients.
The project involves the construction of a state-of-the-art facility at the premises of the National Hospital Colombo. The project’s location within the premises of the National Hospital underscores its importance and relevance to the healthcare infrastructure of the nation.
This facility will include a cardiology building and a tertiary care center, equipped with the latest technology to handle and treat all types of heart-related conditions and surgeries.
Securing funding was a major milestone for this initiative. Minister Pathirana successfully obtained approval for a $40 billion loan from the Asian Development Bank. With the funding in place, the foundation stone is scheduled to be laid in September this year, and construction will begin in January 2025.
This project guarantees a consistent and uninterrupted supply of stents and related medications for heart patients. As a result, patients will have timely access to essential medical supplies during their treatment and recovery. By securing these critical resources, the project aims to enhance patient outcomes, minimize treatment delays, and maintain the highest standards of cardiac care.
Upon its fruition, this monumental building will serve as a beacon of hope and healing, symbolizing the unwavering dedication to improving patient outcomes and fostering a healthier society.We anticipate a future marked by significant progress and positive outcomes in Sri Lanka’s cardiovascular treatment landscape within the foreseeable timeframe.
by Fr. Emmanuel Fernando, OMI
Jesuit Fr. Aloysius Pieris (affectionately called Fr. Aloy) celebrated his 90th birthday on April 9, 2024 and I, as the editor of our Oblate Journal, THE MISSIONARY OBLATE had gone to press by that time. Immediately I decided to publish an article, appreciating the untiring selfless services he continues to offer for inter-Faith dialogue, the renewal of the Catholic Church, his concern for the poor and the suffering Sri Lankan masses and to me, the present writer.
It was in 1988, when I was appointed Director of the Oblate Scholastics at Ampitiya by the then Oblate Provincial Fr. Anselm Silva, that I came to know Fr. Aloy more closely. Knowing well his expertise in matters spiritual, theological, Indological and pastoral, and with the collaborative spirit of my companion-formators, our Oblate Scholastics were sent to Tulana, the Research and Encounter Centre, Kelaniya, of which he is the Founder-Director, for ‘exposure-programmes’ on matters spiritual, biblical, theological and pastoral. Some of these dimensions according to my view and that of my companion-formators, were not available at the National Seminary, Ampitiya.
Ever since that time, our Oblate formators/ accompaniers at the Oblate Scholasticate, Ampitiya , have continued to send our Oblate Scholastics to Tulana Centre for deepening their insights and convictions regarding matters needed to serve the people in today’s context. Fr. Aloy also had tried very enthusiastically with the Oblate team headed by Frs. Oswald Firth and Clement Waidyasekara to begin a Theologate, directed by the Religious Congregations in Sri Lanka, for the contextual formation/ accompaniment of their members. It should very well be a desired goal of the Leaders / Provincials of the Religious Congregations.
Besides being a formator/accompanier at the Oblate Scholasticate, I was entrusted also with the task of editing and publishing our Oblate journal, ‘The Missionary Oblate’. To maintain the quality of the journal I continue to depend on Fr. Aloy for his thought-provoking and stimulating articles on Biblical Spirituality, Biblical Theology and Ecclesiology. I am very grateful to him for his generous assistance. Of late, his writings on renewal of the Church, initiated by Pope St. John XX111 and continued by Pope Francis through the Synodal path, published in our Oblate journal, enable our readers to focus their attention also on the needed renewal in the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka. Fr. Aloy appreciated very much the Synodal path adopted by the Jesuit Pope Francis for the renewal of the Church, rooted very much on prayerful discernment. In my Religious and presbyteral life, Fr.Aloy continues to be my spiritual animator / guide and ongoing formator / acccompanier.
Fr. Aloysius Pieris, BA Hons (Lond), LPh (SHC, India), STL (PFT, Naples), PhD (SLU/VC), ThD (Tilburg), D.Ltt (KU), has been one of the eminent Asian theologians well recognized internationally and one who has lectured and held visiting chairs in many universities both in the West and in the East. Many members of Religious Congregations from Asian countries have benefited from his lectures and guidance in the East Asian Pastoral Institute (EAPI) in Manila, Philippines. He had been a Theologian consulted by the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences for many years. During his professorship at the Gregorian University in Rome, he was called to be a member of a special group of advisers on other religions consulted by Pope Paul VI.
Fr. Aloy is the author of more than 30 books and well over 500 Research Papers. Some of his books and articles have been translated and published in several countries. Among those books, one can find the following: 1) The Genesis of an Asian Theology of Liberation (An Autobiographical Excursus on the Art of Theologising in Asia, 2) An Asian Theology of Liberation, 3) Providential Timeliness of Vatican 11 (a long-overdue halt to a scandalous millennium, 4) Give Vatican 11 a chance, 5) Leadership in the Church, 6) Relishing our faith in working for justice (Themes for study and discussion), 7) A Message meant mainly, not exclusively for Jesuits (Background information necessary for helping Francis renew the Church), 8) Lent in Lanka (Reflections and Resolutions, 9) Love meets wisdom (A Christian Experience of Buddhism, 10) Fire and Water 11) God’s Reign for God’s poor, 12) Our Unhiddden Agenda (How we Jesuits work, pray and form our men). He is also the Editor of two journals, Vagdevi, Journal of Religious Reflection and Dialogue, New Series.
Fr. Aloy has a BA in Pali and Sanskrit from the University of London and a Ph.D in Buddhist Philosophy from the University of Sri Lankan, Vidyodaya Campus. On Nov. 23, 2019, he was awarded the prestigious honorary Doctorate of Literature (D.Litt) by the Chancellor of the University of Kelaniya, the Most Venerable Welamitiyawe Dharmakirthi Sri Kusala Dhamma Thera.
Fr. Aloy continues to be a promoter of Gospel values and virtues. Justice as a constitutive dimension of love and social concern for the downtrodden masses are very much noted in his life and work. He had very much appreciated the commitment of the late Fr. Joseph (Joe) Fernando, the National Director of the Social and Economic Centre (SEDEC) for the poor.
In Sri Lanka, a few religious Congregations – the Good Shepherd Sisters, the Christian Brothers, the Marist Brothers and the Oblates – have invited him to animate their members especially during their Provincial Congresses, Chapters and International Conferences. The mainline Christian Churches also have sought his advice and followed his seminars. I, for one, regret very much, that the Sri Lankan authorities of the Catholic Church –today’s Hierarchy—- have not sought Fr.
Aloy’s expertise for the renewal of the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka and thus have not benefited from the immense store of wisdom and insight that he can offer to our local Church while the Sri Lankan bishops who governed the Catholic church in the immediate aftermath of the Second Vatican Council (Edmund Fernando OMI, Anthony de Saram, Leo Nanayakkara OSB, Frank Marcus Fernando, Paul Perera,) visited him and consulted him on many matters. Among the Tamil Bishops, Bishop Rayappu Joseph was keeping close contact with him and Bishop J. Deogupillai hosted him and his team visiting him after the horrible Black July massacre of Tamils.
Sri Lanka-Singapore Free Trade Agreement
By Gomi Senadhira
senadhiragomi@gmail.com
“You might tell fairy tales, but the progress of a country cannot be achieved through such narratives. A country cannot be developed by making false promises. The country moved backward because of the electoral promises made by political parties throughout time. We have witnessed that the ultimate result of this is the country becoming bankrupt. Unfortunately, many segments of the population have not come to realize this yet.” – President Ranil Wickremesinghe, 2024 Budget speech
Any Sri Lankan would agree with the above words of President Wickremesinghe on the false promises our politicians and officials make and the fairy tales they narrate which bankrupted this country. So, to understand this, let’s look at one such fairy tale with lots of false promises; Ranil Wickremesinghe’s greatest achievement in the area of international trade and investment promotion during the Yahapalana period, Sri Lanka-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (SLSFTA).
It is appropriate and timely to do it now as Finance Minister Wickremesinghe has just presented to parliament a bill on the National Policy on Economic Transformation which includes the establishment of an Office for International Trade and the Sri Lanka Institute of Economics and International Trade.
Was SLSFTA a “Cleverly negotiated Free Trade Agreement” as stated by the (former) Minister of Development Strategies and International Trade Malik Samarawickrama during the Parliamentary Debate on the SLSFTA in July 2018, or a colossal blunder covered up with lies, false promises, and fairy tales? After SLSFTA was signed there were a number of fairy tales published on this agreement by the Ministry of Development Strategies and International, Institute of Policy Studies, and others.
However, for this article, I would like to limit my comments to the speech by Minister Samarawickrama during the Parliamentary Debate, and the two most important areas in the agreement which were covered up with lies, fairy tales, and false promises, namely: revenue loss for Sri Lanka and Investment from Singapore. On the other important area, “Waste products dumping” I do not want to comment here as I have written extensively on the issue.
1. The revenue loss
During the Parliamentary Debate in July 2018, Minister Samarawickrama stated “…. let me reiterate that this FTA with Singapore has been very cleverly negotiated by us…. The liberalisation programme under this FTA has been carefully designed to have the least impact on domestic industry and revenue collection. We have included all revenue sensitive items in the negative list of items which will not be subject to removal of tariff. Therefore, 97.8% revenue from Customs duty is protected. Our tariff liberalisation will take place over a period of 12-15 years! In fact, the revenue earned through tariffs on goods imported from Singapore last year was Rs. 35 billion.
The revenue loss for over the next 15 years due to the FTA is only Rs. 733 million– which when annualised, on average, is just Rs. 51 million. That is just 0.14% per year! So anyone who claims the Singapore FTA causes revenue loss to the Government cannot do basic arithmetic! Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I call on my fellow members of this House – don’t mislead the public with baseless criticism that is not grounded in facts. Don’t look at petty politics and use these issues for your own political survival.”
I was surprised to read the minister’s speech because an article published in January 2018 in “The Straits Times“, based on information released by the Singaporean Negotiators stated, “…. With the FTA, tariff savings for Singapore exports are estimated to hit $10 million annually“.
As the annual tariff savings (that is the revenue loss for Sri Lanka) calculated by the Singaporean Negotiators, Singaporean $ 10 million (Sri Lankan rupees 1,200 million in 2018) was way above the rupees’ 733 million revenue loss for 15 years estimated by the Sri Lankan negotiators, it was clear to any observer that one of the parties to the agreement had not done the basic arithmetic!
Six years later, according to a report published by “The Morning” newspaper, speaking at the Committee on Public Finance (COPF) on 7th May 2024, Mr Samarawickrama’s chief trade negotiator K.J. Weerasinghehad had admitted “…. that forecasted revenue loss for the Government of Sri Lanka through the Singapore FTA is Rs. 450 million in 2023 and Rs. 1.3 billion in 2024.”
If these numbers are correct, as tariff liberalisation under the SLSFTA has just started, we will pass Rs 2 billion very soon. Then, the question is how Sri Lanka’s trade negotiators made such a colossal blunder. Didn’t they do their basic arithmetic? If they didn’t know how to do basic arithmetic they should have at least done their basic readings. For example, the headline of the article published in The Straits Times in January 2018 was “Singapore, Sri Lanka sign FTA, annual savings of $10m expected”.
Anyway, as Sri Lanka’s chief negotiator reiterated at the COPF meeting that “…. since 99% of the tariffs in Singapore have zero rates of duty, Sri Lanka has agreed on 80% tariff liberalisation over a period of 15 years while expecting Singapore investments to address the imbalance in trade,” let’s turn towards investment.
Investment from Singapore
In July 2018, speaking during the Parliamentary Debate on the FTA this is what Minister Malik Samarawickrama stated on investment from Singapore, “Already, thanks to this FTA, in just the past two-and-a-half months since the agreement came into effect we have received a proposal from Singapore for investment amounting to $ 14.8 billion in an oil refinery for export of petroleum products. In addition, we have proposals for a steel manufacturing plant for exports ($ 1 billion investment), flour milling plant ($ 50 million), sugar refinery ($ 200 million). This adds up to more than $ 16.05 billion in the pipeline on these projects alone.
And all of these projects will create thousands of more jobs for our people. In principle approval has already been granted by the BOI and the investors are awaiting the release of land the environmental approvals to commence the project.
I request the Opposition and those with vested interests to change their narrow-minded thinking and join us to develop our country. We must always look at what is best for the whole community, not just the few who may oppose. We owe it to our people to courageously take decisions that will change their lives for the better.”
According to the media report I quoted earlier, speaking at the Committee on Public Finance (COPF) Chief Negotiator Weerasinghe has admitted that Sri Lanka was not happy with overall Singapore investments that have come in the past few years in return for the trade liberalisation under the Singapore-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement. He has added that between 2021 and 2023 the total investment from Singapore had been around $162 million!
What happened to those projects worth $16 billion negotiated, thanks to the SLSFTA, in just the two-and-a-half months after the agreement came into effect and approved by the BOI? I do not know about the steel manufacturing plant for exports ($ 1 billion investment), flour milling plant ($ 50 million) and sugar refinery ($ 200 million).
However, story of the multibillion-dollar investment in the Petroleum Refinery unfolded in a manner that would qualify it as the best fairy tale with false promises presented by our politicians and the officials, prior to 2019 elections.
Though many Sri Lankans got to know, through the media which repeatedly highlighted a plethora of issues surrounding the project and the questionable credentials of the Singaporean investor, the construction work on the Mirrijiwela Oil Refinery along with the cement factory began on the24th of March 2019 with a bang and Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and his ministers along with the foreign and local dignitaries laid the foundation stones.
That was few months before the 2019 Presidential elections. Inaugurating the construction work Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said the projects will create thousands of job opportunities in the area and surrounding districts.
The oil refinery, which was to be built over 200 acres of land, with the capacity to refine 200,000 barrels of crude oil per day, was to generate US$7 billion of exports and create 1,500 direct and 3,000 indirect jobs. The construction of the refinery was to be completed in 44 months. Four years later, in August 2023 the Cabinet of Ministers approved the proposal presented by President Ranil Wickremesinghe to cancel the agreement with the investors of the refinery as the project has not been implemented! Can they explain to the country how much money was wasted to produce that fairy tale?
It is obvious that the President, ministers, and officials had made huge blunders and had deliberately misled the public and the parliament on the revenue loss and potential investment from SLSFTA with fairy tales and false promises.
As the president himself said, a country cannot be developed by making false promises or with fairy tales and these false promises and fairy tales had bankrupted the country. “Unfortunately, many segments of the population have not come to realize this yet”.
(The writer, a specialist and an activist on trade and development issues . )
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