Errol Fernando to Gavin, 5 August 2019
For 3 long days I kept wearing out my chairs and couldn’t take my eyes off the match. Constant changes of fortune, ebb and flow, but with the game equally poised. Then on the fourth day the Aussie batsmen, empowered by Smith, broke away and demolished the English bowlers. Moeen Ali looked incapable of dismissing the local kindergarten second eleven.
On the final day the English batsmen, as a sympathetic gesture, felt obliged to emulate their bowlers by batting like the local kindergarten second eleven.
Jason Roy bowled Lyon
It would not be fair to blame any one particular player, but an ugly thought crossed my mind when I watched Jason Roy dance down the wicket, swing extravagantly at Lyon and get clean bowled. I couldn’t help trying to imagine what Tuffy would have said and done to him when he got to the dressing room and was removing his pads. The picture in my mind was so gruesome and horrific that I nearly fainted!
Speaking of Tuffy, Eric Roles kindly reminded me yesterday that I actually did receive a handshake from Tuffy when I was removing my pads in the dressing room during the Big Match. Eric quite rightly regards it as the greatest honour I could ever have received !
Gavin, no doubt you and I have many thoughts about the Test match, many accolades for Tim Paine and plenty of advice to the English selectors.
Let’s share them soon, and all the best,
Errol
PS: “Tuffy” seems to have been a legendary Trinity sportsmaster and disciplinarian.
PA 2: Tuffy must have been beaming when Peradeniya University (with Errol Fernando, Michael RobErts & Malsiri Kurkulasuriya in tis rankscollapsed for 17 runs at Asigiriya in the face of Eric Roles the speedster and sundry others.