Email received on 25 May 2007 from Francis (Frank) Fernando
AT AN EARLIER WORLD CUP TIME
Sri Lanka Foreign Minister Late Lakshman Kadirgamar's
(A Tamil assassinated by the Tigers)
”After Dinner Speech” “OFF THE CUFF”,-in the UK,
at which Sri Lankan Cricketers were present.
(Not the last world Cup!).
"Captain Atapattu and members of the Sri Lankan team,
Members of the Sri Lankan community,
Friends of Sri Lanka,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Some historians say, I think uncharitably, that cricket is really a
diabolical political strategy, disguised as a game, in fact a
substitute for War, invented by the ingenious British to confuse the
natives by encouraging them to fight each other instead of their
imperial rulers.
The world is divided into two camps - those who revel in the
intricacies of cricket and those who are totally baffled by it, who
cannot figure out why a group of energetic young men should spend days,
often in the hot sun or bitter cold, chasing a ball across an open
field, hitting it from time to time with a stick - all to the rapturous
applause of thousands, now millions, of ecstatic spectators across the
world.
The game has developed a mystical language of its own that
further bewilders those who are already befuddled by its complexities.
In the course of my travels I have a hard time explaining to the
non-cricketing world - in America, China, Europe and Russia -
that a
'googly' is not an Indian sweetmeat;
that a 'square cut' is not a choice selection of prime beef;
that a 'cover drive' is not a secluded part of the garden;
that a 'bouncer' is not a muscular janitor at a night club,
that a 'yorker' is not some exotic cocktail mixed in Yorkshire
or that a
'leg-break' is not a sinister manoeuvre designed to cripple your
opponent's limbs below the waist.
Ladies and Gentlemen, let me see whether politics and cricket have
anything in common.
Both are games. Politicians and cricketers are
superficially similar, and yet very different. Both groups are wooed by
the cruel public who embrace them today and reject them tomorrow.
Cricketers work hard; politicians only pretend to do so.
Cricketers are disciplined; discipline is a word unknown to most politicians in any language.
Cricketers risk their own limbs in the heat of honourable play,
politicians encourage others to risk their limbs in pursuit of
fruitless causes while they remain secure in the safety of their
pavilions.
Cricketers deserve the rewards they get; the people get the
politicians they deserve.
Cricketers retire young; politicians go on for ever.
Cricketers unite the country; politicians divide it.
Cricketers accept the umpire's verdict even if they disagree with it;
Politicians who disagree with an umpire usually get him transferred.
Cricketers stick to their team through victory and defeat,
Politicians in a losing team cross over and join the winning team.
Clearly, cricketers are the better breed.
It is said that the task of a foreign minister is to lie effusively for
his country abroad.
That may be true, but it is certainly true that he
has to fight for his country and defend it at all times.
Our cricketers may recall that in the run-up to the 1995 World Cup, Australia refused to play a match in Colombo, citing security reasons.
Shane Warne said he wouldn't come to Colombo because he couldn't do any shopping there.
The press asked me for a comment. I said "shopping is for sissies".
There was a storm of protest in Australia.
A TV interviewer asked me whether I had ever played cricket.
I said I had played before he was born - without helmets and thigh guards, on matting wickets that were full of holes and stones, and I had my share of broken bones to show it.
My friend the Australian foreign minister was drawn into the fray
and phoned me.
We decided to cool things down.
A combined India/Pakistan team came to Colombo at very short notice to play an exhibition match in place of the Australian match.
It was a magnificent gesture of South Asian solidarity.
Against strong security advice I went on to the field to greet and
thank our friends from India and Pakistan.
When the whole episode was over I sent a bouquet of flowers to my Australian counterpart.
Flowers are also for sissies.
I remember vividly the incident that occurred in Australia when Murali
was called for throwing and Arjuna led his team to the boundary, in
protest, but cleverly refrained from crossing it.
I was watching TV in Colombo.
As a past captain I asked myself what I would have done in
Arjuna's place.
In my mind I had no hesitation in supporting his decision.
A few minutes later the phone rang.
The President of the Board called to ask for advice.
I said Arjuna was right because a Captain must, on the field, stand up for his men and protect them, but the consequences must not be allowed to go too far; good lawyers must be engaged and a reasonable compromise must be reached. That was done.
During that tour I paid an official visit to Australia.
My friend the Australian foreign minister in the course of a dinner speech invited me to go with him the next day to Adelaide, his home town, to watch the final day's play.
I knew what the result was going to be.
In my reply I said that at the end of the match I did not want to be the one to tell him that Australia had "won by a Hair,'.
Accordingly, I went back home,as planned, to maintain the good relations that we have with Australia.
Foreign ministers sometimes find themselves in very difficult situations.
Take the case of the Foreign Minister of Uganda.
President Idi Amin told him that he wanted to change the name of Uganda to Idi.
The minister was asked to canvas world opinion and return in two weeks.
He did not do so. He was summoned and asked to explain.
He said :"Mr.President, I have been informed that there is a country called Cyprus.
Its citizens are called Cypriots,
If we change the name of our country to 'Idi' our citizens would be called... Idiots". Reason prevailed.
A story goes that a shark was asked why diplomats were his preferred
food. He replied "because their brains being small are a tasty morsel,
their spines being supple I can chew on them at leisure - and they come
delightfully marinaded in alcohol."
Ladies and Gentlemen, as I approach the close of this brief address I
wish to speak directly to our Sri Lankan team.
Today we lost a match.
But you lost to the rain and M/s Duckworth and Lewis.
You did not lose to England.
Only a few weeks ago you had a resounding victory against
South Africa.
You will win again tomorrow.
What is important is to keep up your confidence and spirits.
All of us, your fellow countrymen and women, have been enormously
impressed in recent times by the commitment, discipline, athleticism
and determination that you have displayed in the field. The people are
with you.
We all know that each and every one of you, are constantly busy
honing your skills. We can see that you are maintaining a high standard
of physical fitness.
When the people see this it gives them not only immense pleasure but the moral upliftment that Sri Lankans are capable of,in rising to the challenge of sustained performance.
Every team loses. It takes two to play a game. One has to lose.
It is the manner in which you play the game which gives the promise of
success to come.
It is a great pleasure to see how youngsters are being drafted into the national team.
Our team is united; it reflects all the races and religions of our country.
Cricket, like all international sport today, is highly competitive; and
so it must be, and so it must remain.
It must always be regarded as a very high honour to represent one's
country at any sport.
All of you are role models for our youth. They will be looking to see
how you take defeat.
To exult in victory is easy, to remain well balanced in defeat is a mark of maturity.
Do not allow yourselves to be disturbed by the armchair critics who will no doubt engage in a display of theoretical learning on how the game was played.
Many of these critics have never put bat to ball. It makes them feel good to indulge in the past time of amateur criticism.
They do not know what it is to face fast bowling in fading light;
to engage in a run race against daunting odds; to find the stamina and sheer physical endurance to spend concentrated hours in the field of play.
They know nothing of the psychological pressure that modern sportsmen are subject to.
Therefore, my advice to you is - ignore them.
Go your way with customary discipline and methodical preparation for the next game, the next series in different parts of the world under different conditions.
For me it has been a great pleasure and an honour to be here with you
tonight.
When I was invited to be the Chief Guest at this occasion on my way to New York for the General Assembly of the United Nations, I accepted with eager anticipation of meeting our cricketers and relaxing for a moment.
Nobody told me that I had to make a speech, until last night when it
dawned on me then that there is no such thing as a free dinner!".
v
v
Date: Wed, 9 May 2007 18:00:14 +0800
Subject: FW: [Lankan Friends] Two Sri Lankan Masters
Source: The Hindu ( http://www.hinduonnet.com//2000/02/20/stories/0720028a.htm)
Two Sri Lankan masters
AS explained in my last column, cricket in Sri Lanka is founded
on the schools. And in the honours system in schoolboy cricket,
the batsman always takes precedence over the bowler. At that
level, to score 50 or 100 is more generously rewarded, by fellow
schoolboy and teacher alike, than to take four or five wickets.
This background might explain why that beautiful, fractured
island has produced so many great batsmen but very few bowlers of
true international class.
The doyen of Sri Lankan batsmen was undoubtedly F.C. (Derek) De
Saram. He was born in 1912, into a home of sport and privilege.
De Saram was an upper class Burgher who studied at Royal College,
Colombo, before going up to Oxford in 1932.
Here he was treated shamefully by the cricket authorities (as, years before at
Cambridge, had been the experience of another brown-skinned
aristocrat, K. S. Ranjitsinhji).
They would not even give him a net, so he went off instead to the tennis courts. Here the equation was man-to-man, and the colour of one's skin did not matter so long as one beat one's opponent 6-0, 6-0. De Saram got
his tennis Blue two years in a row, then tried his hand once more
at The Parks.
He was picked for the game against the visiting
Australians, scoring an immaculate 100, this against Clarrie
Grimmett and Bill O'Reilly, who otherwise carried all before them
that summer. Of an Oxford total of 216, last year's reject made
128 (96 of these in boundaries), a lowly 16 being the next
highest score. Three of his four sixes were hit off Grimmett. De
Saram had now to be chosen for the University match, where he
stroked a silken 85 in two hours at the crease.
While De Saram played active cricket, he got, on the average, one
chance every five years to bat against bowlers of quality (there
were none at home). From what he did to them we may consider him
to have been a player of high class.
In 1936 he played for Minor Counties against the Indian touring side, being "merciless" on Mohammed Nissar and Amar Singh, a pairing almost as deadly with the new ball as Grimmett and O'Reilly were with the old.
He returned to Colombo the same year, his Oxford degree safely in
his pocket.
Then in November 1937 he was invited by the Catholic
Gymkhana of Bandra to play for "The Rest" in the Bombay
Pentangular. It was the first time this team of leftovers had
made its appearance in the tournament.
Also chosen for The Rest, and accompanying De Saram on the boat from Colombo, was the Buddhist opening batsman S. S. Jayawickreme, who had once battled with Derek for Royal College.
In the winter of 1932-33, while his mate was cooling his heels in Oxford, Jayawickreme was enjoying a fine tour of India with a Ceylonese team, scoring 50 and 100 in the two representative matches, being especially severe on Mohammed Nissar.
When The Rest played the Muslims they were without Vijay Hazare,
but even in his presence De Saram would have assumed, as of
right, the mantle of leading batsman. He scored 50 in the first
innings, his compatriot Jayawickreme contributing 67. When the
Rest were set 266 to win in the fourth innings, Jayawickreme was
out early for a duck, and the leg spin of Amir Elahi was too much
for most of the others. But De Saram stayed till the end, scoring
133 not out with 22 boundaries, drives and cuts in the main,
taking his side to within 33 runs of victory. This was the first
ever competitive first-class match organised at the Brabourne
Stadium, and De Saram's remains one of the finest innings played
at that once famous, but now neglected, cricketing venue.
Almost 20 years after he battled Elahi, De Saram came up against
another show bowler of quality, Johnny Wardle. With the rest of
Len Hutton's M.C.C. side bound for Australia, Wardle had stopped
in Colombo to play a one-day match against All-Ceylon. De Saram,
by now well into his forties, picked Wardle off his toes for six
and then hit him repeatedly over extra-cover: the kind of
treatment the Yorkshire left-armer never received from the stay-
at-home English batsmen. The poet Alan Ross, who was covering
Hutton's tour for The Observer, wrote that "Wardle must have
thought himself faced by a species (of batsman) newly arisen from
the ocean".
So long as the journeys were made by boat between Australia and
England, touring teams bound for one or other country would stop
en route at Colombo.
Bradman played there, as did Miller,Compton, Statham and Hutton.
The talents of the home side in these pick-up matches so impressed Jack Fingleton that he suggested that the best Ceylonese cricketers, like De Saram, be considered eligible for selection to Indian Test sides.
The Indians, always patronising towards their little neighbours,
offered instead to allow Ceylon University to enter the Rohinton
Baria Trophy, and to organise an annual three-day match between
the state side of Madras (later Tamil Nadu) and Ceylon (not yet
Sri Lanka), played for the Gopalan Trophy, this named after the
Madras fast bowler and double international. In the first of
these fixtures, played in 1952 at Chepauk, De Saram was captain
of Ceylon.
He would, in most people's judgment, be skipper of an
all-time Sri Lankan eleven as well. This selection would not,
perhaps, be based on his batting genius alone. For De Saram was,
by both nature and upbringing, an autocrat.
In 1962, by which time he had put away his kit for good,
he was a key figure in the right-wing, military-aided attempt
to unseat the democratically elected government
of S.W.R.D. Bandarnaike.
The coup failed, and De Saram was incarcerated for a long time in Colombo jail. In the late 1960s he was visited in prison by his fellow Oxonian and batting stylist, Colin Cowdrey. Cowdrey - who had chased some of
those hits off Wardle back in 1954 - reported later that for
their meeting the old warrior had put on his M.C.C. tie.
A near contemporary of De Saram was Mahadevan Sathasivan.
"Satha" was from a prosperous business family, yet the elite St. Thomas's
College rejected him, possibly because he was a Tamil.
He joined the rival Wesley College, then hit a double century against the
school which would not have him.
Madras cricket lovers still speak in wonder of the 215 he scored
in four hours of magical batsmanship at Chepauk for Ceylon
against South Zone in 1947, this knock a strong claimant for the
title of best innings ever played on that great ground.
When Satha went into bat his manager said he would present him a
bottle of Scotch if he made 100. He was 120 not out at close of
play, then extracted a promise from the manager that he would
send him for a week's holiday in Bombay if he achieved a second
one.
After partying all night Satha went on the next morning to
his double hundred. In this innings he would come down the wicket
even to C. Rangachari, India's fastest bowler. Like Mushtaq Ali
he dressed smartly, sporting a white handkerchief tied around his
neck, and, like Mushtaq again, he played on dancing feet. S. K.
Gurunathan, writing of his innings in The Hindu, said that Satha
played all the shots, most majestically the late cut and a leg
glide by which "he waved the ball from his presence".
Three years later he scored a faultless 96 against a Commonwealth attack led
by Fred Freer, Frank Worrell and George Tribe, three Test
bowlers, the last one of the greats.
While still in his pomp as a player, Sathasivam was arrested on a
murder charge. He was accused of killing his wife with an ammi,
the massive cylindrical stone that Tamils use to grind the batter
for their idli and dosai.
Satha dipped deep into his savings and flew out a Queen's Counsel from London. The Q.C. was able to get him acquitted, so the Ceylonese batsman escaped the fate of the Jamaican and West Indian fast bowler Leslie Hylton, hanged in 1955 for wife-murder.
Satha then settled down in Singapore, captaining its cricket team, and later, after the island's merger with its northern neighbour, led Malaysia as well. When the tempers had sufficiently cooled he returned to his homeland, to
become once more a habitue of the bars and pavilions where they
discussed great cricket feats, his included.
De Saram and Sathasivan were batsmen of genius and men of will.
They would be automatic choices in an all-time Sri Lankan eleven
- at any rate, in an eleven selected by men above the age of 50.
They were worthy forerunners of those who have come since, of
strokemakers and artists such as Duleep Mendis, Roy Dias,
Aravinda De Silva, Arjuna Ranatunga and Sanath Jayasurya.
RAMACHANDRA GUHA
--
Fazli
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