A suggestion arising from Boof Lehmann’s attack of hoof and mouth? So thinks a resident in England who sent me this note
“Why is it that the Australian male – from Tony Abbott to Darren Lehmann – never misses an opportunity to prove the stereotype of the colonial Neanderthal?”
SEE http://www.ozlanka.com/2013/jul/islanders.html for details of tour
Peter Lalor in The Australian 21 May 2013
DAVID Warner will tomorrow face charges of breaching Cricket Australia’s code of behaviour after engaging in a very public Twitter spat with a journalist. The Test opening batsman will appear via video conference before a commissioner as he is on a flying visit to Australia. Warner is on his way home from a stint with the Delhi Daredevils but flies out soon after to play for Australia in the Champions Trophy. Continue reading
Special Correspondent
The Students Federation for Free Eelam is planning to petition the city police commissioner to urge him not to grant permission for the IPL cricket matches in Chennai, if Sri Lankan players are participating. The first IPL match this season is to be played between Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians at the M.A. Chidambaram stadium on April 6. The Tamil Nadu Cricket Association’s application seeking a public resort licence to conduct the match is pending with the city police.
The federation’s state coordinator, V. Prabhakaran, said letters would be written to the Board of Control for Cricket in India, IPL team owners as well as stadium authorities to not permit Sri Lankans to play in Chennai as it would hurt the sentiments of Tamils in the State. “A decision to this effect was taken after a majority of youth, who responded to a questionnaire in Chennai on Sunday, concurred with our view that Sri Lankan players should not be allowed to play in Chennai,” he said. Earlier in the day, several teams of students went around distributing hundreds of questionnaires to youth in the city. Some of the questions were – are you aware of the Sri Lankan issue? Should Sri Lankan players be allowed to play IPL in Chennai? Do you support the ongoing students’ protests? Continue reading
Michael Roberts
Over the past decade the security screen and watchful eye surrounding cricketers and cricket officials have increased substantially. There are good reasons. With betting, spot-fixing and instances of corrupt cricketers been seduced into the betting game, the ICC keeps a weather eye on communications and, as far as I know, bans the use of mobile phones by players during matches. Again, in certain lands armed guards oversee the cricketers’ environment — with the attack on the Sri Lankan team and its official entourage in Lahore serving as the principal reason for this increase of concern.
I discovered the bureaucratic lengths to which the ICC and its local agencies proceed in this regard when the Test Match between Australia and India was played in Adelaide recently. Kumar Dharmasena was umpiring and when I was at the match one day I went to the front-desk at the office of the South Australian Cricket Association (SACA) to ascertain which hotel he was staying in because Kumar is an acquaintance and I thought it would be good to indulge in some hospitality. The front desk was not permitted to divulge such information and gave me a number for a liaison officer to pursue further inquiries. That officer never answered his phone, so I gave up. Sachchitra Senanayake being escorted to pavilion Continue reading
…… Headline in The Island 10 September 2011
Steve James, from the Telegraph, 22 May 2011
Pic courtesy of Getty
Aesthetes, take your seats. Beauty is on its way. Amid the muscular beasts that roam cricket’s Twenty20-filled landscape these days, there is still room for style, and batsmen do not come any more stylish than Sri Lanka’s Mahela Jayawardene. Is there a more elegant right-hander in the game right now? I would venture not. He really should have been a left-hander. Sachin Tendulkar will doubtless have his supporters, but are his strokes really quite as languid as Jayawardene’s? Tendulkar’s team-mate, VVS Laxman, might actually be easier on the eye. Warwickshire had two rather graceful batsmen in their ranks last week — the homegrown Ian Bell and their overseas import, Mohammad Yousuf. Michael Clarke has his moments, as once did his compatriot Mark Waugh. It is, of course, all subjective fun.
But I have been smitten by Jayawardene’s strokeplay ever since first setting eyes upon it in the town of Kurunegala, in central Sri Lanka, where he made a sublime century for Sri Lanka A against England A in 1998. The effects of the furnace-like heat, exacerbated by the huge rock that overlooks the ground, as well as the presence on the outfield of a huge brown snake that frightened the life out of fast bowler Jimmy Ormond as he ran around the boundary, were eased by the class of Jayawardene’s batting Continue reading
