A new coronavirus wave hitting Sri Lanka has halted a cricket match between two of the country’s top schools that has been played for 141 years, continuing even through world wars.
The annual Royal vs St. Thomas’s encounter, originally scheduled for next month, has been indefinitely put off after four players tested positive for Covid-19, a school organiser said.
The latest edition of Sri Lanka’s longest-running sporting event was to have been played over three days without spectators.
“What would have been the 142nd Royal-Thomian big-match is not likely to be held this year because of the latest Covid wave,” the official said. Even the first and second World Wars failed to halt the annual game, that is often compared to the English public school encounter between Eton and Harrow, played since 1805.
