The Royal – Thomian is primarily about boys (including those disguised as older and wiser men). The general melee of a Royal – Thomian in our day would guarantee two things. More booze. More chaos. More riotous dancing. And then more booze. So I lied, that’s more than two – but in those days, we never kept count of anything during the Big Match. With fists flying at no one and everyone, the pitch was not the only place to crack balls. There were fights over girlfriends. There were fights over the last dregs of coconut nectar. There were fights over lyrics, deemed heretical by those who sang no better and on no less heretical topics. There were, however, never fights over religion or ethnicity. These mattered little, and the only boundaries that matters were those that raised the score. And while there were fights over territory, these were not linked to traditional homelands.
Read A Royal Thomian family for the full article. This year, Royal batting proved as virile as the Queen Mother. The scoreboard at the time of writing:
09.45am – Toss won by S.Thomas’ College and STC elected to field
10.00am – Match Started
10.**am – Royal’s first wicket taken
10.**am – Royal’s second wicket taken
11.31am – Royal’s third wicket taken
11.39am – Royal’s fourth wicket taken
11.46am – Royal’s fifth wicket taken
12.15pm – Match stopped for lunch
01.00pm – Match resumed
01.44pm – Royal’s sixth wicket taken
02.01pm – Royal’s seventh wicket taken
Thora!