143rd Battle of the Blues in July

The Royal Thomian cricket encounter, the 143rd Battle of the Blues, is scheduled to be held on 21, 22, & 23 July at the SSC.

Sri Lanka's premier boys schools Royal College Colombo and St. Thomas' College Mount Lavinia will battle it out once again for the 143rd uninterrupted cricket encounter, the 'Battle of the Blues' played for the prestigious Rt. Hon. D. S. Senanayake Memorial Shield.

Keeping the century old traditions intact the 143rd Royal-Thomian three-day encounter will be played at the SSC grounds.

The three-day match is expected to be played on 21, 22, & 23 July. 

Sri Lanka’s longest-running and world’s only second-oldest big match between – Royal College and St. Thomas’ College Mount Lavinia – will be played only in July this year, in stark contrast to its usual period in the month of March, an authoritative source told the Sunday Times.

This year’s encounter, the 143rd Battle of the Blues, to be held in July at the SSC, outside the usual period, would be the second straight occasion the match is pushed to the second half of the year after last year’s match was in October.

The most anticipated event of the year in the Sri Lankan school calendar is probably the Royal – Thomian ‘Big match’. The match is looked forward to by both young and old, male and female and even those who has no connection with either school would turn up and enjoy the celebrations.

The Royal versus S. Thomas’ Cricket Match or better known as the Royal–Thomian, is the second-longest uninterrupted cricket match series in the world, the oldest being the series between St. Peters College and Prince Alfred College, South Australia. The match is even older than the Ashes, having been played for 138 years continuously.

The colourful history that comes hand in hand with the match dates back to 1879, when the original match was played between the Colombo Academy and S. Thomas’ College with schoolmasters participating as well as schoolboys. From 1880 onwards, only schoolboys were allowed to play in the match. It is the only school boy cricket match in Sri Lanka to be played over three days.

The Battle of the Blues, played for the D. S. Senanayake shield, finally went ahead in October, last year, subsequent to a multiple stop-start journey. The title-holders are currently the Thomians, when they regained it in 2018.