BERNARD Rulach is no more. Vale’ a great of St.Mary’s College Dehiwala. – BY TREVINE RODRIGO IN MELBOURNE. (eLanka Sports Editor).
It is with deep regret that I was informed of the passing of Bernard Rulach, a former Sri Lanka cricketer who made a noticeable impression in School and Club cricket in Sri Lanka.
Bernard Rulach was 77.
A gladiator on the cricket field for Colts Cricket Club in Colombo, Bernie as he was affectionately known, rubbed shoulders with some of the best cricketing talent before the country reached Test status. But he figured prominently as and all-rounder with grit and determination.
The cream of Sri Lanka cricket at the time Michael Tissera, Anura Tennakoon, David Heyn, Bandula Warnapura, Daya Sahabandu, the late Abu Fuard, Russell Hamer, Bandula Warnapura, Gamini Goonesena, Stanley Jayasinghe and a host of other Sri Lanka stars will bear testimony to the talent of Bernie who was a fierce competitor on the field but a gentleman off it. He was also a straight shooter who did not hold back about his personal views on a game he loved.
Bernie played in a single limited overs game for Sri Lanka against India led by Ajith Wadekar and was up against some of the best players at the time including Sunil Gavaskar.
Hailing from the little known school at the time, St. Mary’s College Dehiwala, Bernie showed outstanding talent that did not go unnoticed.
Playing in the second tier at school competitions, he decimated opposition teams as a hard hitting left hand batsman reeling off several centuries and scoring heavily, to gain respect and recognition.
He was picked to play for Outstation Schools then Nationalised Schools before his outstanding talent won him a scholarship to Australia with team mate Ronnie Boustead.
He was also a member of a Nationalised Schools cricket team that toured Australia and Captained a Nationalised Schools team that played against a touring London schoolboys side visiting Sri Lanka.
During his days at Colts, he showed natural leadership qualities that had him elected to lead a strong contingent which included one of Sri Lanka’s most technically correct batsman Roy Dias, Kumar Ramanathan, the late Gary de Silva and Trevor Rajaratnam and Gerald Solomon’s to name a few.
He played several seasons of Club cricket but was unfortunate to not gain selection for reasons unknown, apart from being from a small school, which was the culture for selection those days.
Hurt, when I reminded him, he would often shrug it off as being born in the wrong era. With the cultural shift in the right direction these days where talent gets due recognition, he would have been a regular at the highest level.
Bernard Rulach was not one dimensional at school level, figuring in many sports, mainly Rugby, at which he excelled when the Marian’s would rattle the cages of the more affluent Schools. There was an era when St. Mary’s demanded the respect of the dominant teams in rugby. And he was part of it.
After his playing days, Bernie chose to live a private life that was more family oriented. He did play a bit of Club cricket in Melbourne for the Old Marian’s and was once Vice President of the club with school mate Dyan De Kauwe at tge helm.
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He leaves behind doting wife Faye and his kids, one he constantly told me, was a talented star on the horizon in Victorian Club cricket.
May the turf he spent many years on in his youth, lay lightly on him.
