Cricket, class and baila: The many layers of Sri Lanka’s celebrated Royal Thomian sports encounter
With an unbroken 145-year streak, the face-off between two of the island-nation’s oldest schools has become a cultural rite of passage for the nation’s elite.
Nimsara and Themira remember the first time they entered a sports stadium. It was a hot day in March 2016. They had woken up early and were headed for their destination, flushed with anticipation: they were going to a cricket match, after all, and in Sri Lanka, there is always something to look forward to in a cricket match.
For Nimsara and Themira, and the hundreds of schoolboys beside them, though, the match meant something more. It was the first day of one of the world’s oldest-running cricket matches: the Battle of the Blues, also known as the Royal Thomian, the 145-year-old annual cricket encounter between two of the oldest schools in Sri Lanka – Royal College, located in the country’s capital Colombo, and S Thomas’ College, located in the suburb of Mount Lavinia.
As Nimsara and Themira entered the stadium, the Singhalese Sports Club, they felt overwhelmed. Until now, they had always imagined the match to be just that – a match.
Yet looking around, seeing numerous “distinguished” Old Boys from their school, including political leaders and corporate heads, engaging in casual conversation with each other, they understood that this was much more than a match. It was a gathering of Sri Lanka’s elite and...
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