It is official. Richmond has won more big matches than their arch rivals Mahinda in the history of the South’s famous “Lovers’ Quarrel” big match which would be played for the 108th time this Friday and Saturday.
The official win tally has been accepted as 23-21 in Richmond’s favour when the officials of two schools met recently resolve the mystery of the constantly changing number of wins each school had registered.
After years of uncertainty, Mahinda College authorities had invited Richmond to this meeting aimed at ending the conflicting claims by various parties.
The Richmond team headed by their Vice Principal Gamini Jayawardena included cricket historian, former cricketer and coach Rohitha Wickramasekara, senior Richmond old boy Dudley Silva and Richmond’s Cricket Master Lalith Kumarasiri – incidentally a Mahindian and Ranjith Gamage who acted as the Secretary of the meeting.
Mahinda Team was headed by Vice Principal J. Munasinghe and included former cricketer and coach Punya Arambewela, former cricketer Upul Sumathipala and W.J. Kulasuriya.
Both teams discussed the comprehensive history of the “Lovers’ Quarrel” in detail at the meeting held on March 13 at the Olcott Hall of Mahinda College and agreed upon the final win tally as beyond dispute before signing a joint statement accepting the proven number of wins as 23-21 in favour of Richmond.
Following are some of the main points of history in the Galle Big Match
Began in 1905 at Galle Esplanade (First Match Umpired by College Principals)
No Matches in the years 1910, 1911, 1912 due to spectator violence
1916 Richmond Principal had taken a decision not to take part in the cricket season (Richmond did not play a single match this season, but at the meeting it was agreed to consider this year’s result as a walk over for Mahinda)
1926 a Walk over to Richmond (Mahinda played the full season, but did not turn up for the big match)
1952 Match was abandoned without a result due to the sudden death of Prime Minister D S Senanayake.
