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If ever the term the glorious uncertainties of cricket could be used it would fit the surprising - to say the least - win brought off by S. Thomas' over Royal on the sun-drenched SSC grounds shortly after tea yesterday .

It was only on Thursday, day one of the match that Royal put up a match-winning score of 288 for 3 declared, sending signals that they meant to record a win in the 32-wins each series. What went wrong for them - or right for the Thomians - will go down in history as three days of mediocre cricket that still produced an eyebrow-raising victory for one side.

Experts say that the catch dropped on day two by the Royal skipper Amarasuriya himself was what turned events in S. Thomas' favour.

Royal's approach was wrong, Ranjan Madugalle, captain of Royal in centenary year 1979, told this writer.

Mindset is a key factor, he said, adding that it was not possible that one side turned brilliant overnight and the other utterly mediocre.

'If that catch was held yesterday at this time today it would have been a reverse situation,' Madugalle said, adding that this 120th encounter was yet another Royal-Thomian one did not remember two days later for producing anything worth remembering.

'It was not so in the Royal-Thomians of say 30 years ago,' he said.

And so in blankets of blue smoke enveloping the SSC grounds, the Thomians jubilated as the record books were altered and the Warden of the Mt. Lavinia College announced that Monday would be a holiday to mark the great victory.