Category Archives: welfare through sport

August 3, 2020 · 1:16 pm

Ancient Aloysian Cricketers resurrected by a Mahindian-Aloysian Lineage

Courtesy of Nath Goonawardena

young Harry Solomons

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Filed under memorable moments, reconciliation through sport, taking the mickey, welfare through sport

June 30, 2020 · 4:34 am

Our Cricket Reporters at the SSC….. 2018 or so

the BREW that sustains them all

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Filed under cricket and life, performance, Rex Clementine, Sidharth Monga, taking the mickey, technology and cricket, unusual people, welfare through sport

June 5, 2020 · 5:55 pm

Three West Indians opt out of England tour

Nagraj Gollapudi in ESPNcricinfo, 3 June 2020 … with this title “Why West Indies trio pulled out of England tour”

Concerns about their families are understood to be the primary reason behind Darren Bravo, Shimron Hetmyer and Keemo Paul declining to be part of the West Indies Test squad for the England tour. Both the prospect of leaving their families for seven weeks and concerns about how quickly they would be able to see them on their return to the Caribbean at the end of July are understood to be key factors in the players’ decisions, with uncertainty around the quarantine requirements that may be imposed by their respective governments.

Hetmyer and Darren Bravo in the middle

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Filed under player selections, violent intrusions, welfare through sport, West Indian Cricket

May 26, 2020 · 7:19 am

Cumulous Clouds over the Cricket Scenario

News Item in ISLAND, 26 May 2020 …. http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=222751

The coronavirus may have struck shortly before the English cricket season was due to start, but it threatens to have major implications for the game worldwide. English officials still believe they can fit a full international programme of three-Test series against both the West Indies and Pakistan, as well as one-day internationals with Australia and Ireland, into a season that won’t start until 1 July at the earliest.

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Filed under Australian cricket, cricket and life, cricket governance, politics and cricket, technology and cricket, welfare through sport

March 1, 2020 · 8:04 am

Harry Solomons, the Sri Lankan Aussie “Invincible” from St. Aloysius, Galle

Harry Solomons, the Aloysian Australian Invincible, in Australian colours…. the same combination as his alma mater, St, Aloysius, Galle …. playing for Australia’s Over Seventies against New Zealand this February 2020 –where, he says, “we beat NZ in our only 70s International on tour…… [and] I played the full 6 matches on tour”. Harry then presents snapshots of the “emotional cap ceremony.”

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Filed under Australian cricket, baggy green, cricket and life, cricketing icons, performance, player selections, Sri Lanka Cricket, tower of strength, unusual people, welfare through sport, work ethic

February 20, 2020 · 2:33 am

Whistle-Stop Boosts in Sri Lankan Cricketing History

Nicholas Brookes at https://wisdenblog.wordpress.com/2020/02/06/notes-from-a-small-island/ …. with this chosen title “Play to the Whistle” … with highlighting added and Pix illustrative and not always from such moments

Until 1982 Sri Lanka were stranded on the fringes of international cricket: a small island, marooned. Life on the outside wasn’t easy, but Sri Lanka still had something to make most of the cricketing world envious. You might call it a geographical blessing.

In the days before planes, the only way to get between England and Australia was by boat. It was an arduous journey that could take up to three months and required a stopover. With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, Ceylon (as it was called until 1972) emerged as the natural point of transit.

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Filed under Ashes Tests, Australian cricket, cricket and life, cricketing icons, English cricket, memorable moments, performance, sportsmanship, Sri Lanka Cricket, unusual people, welfare through sport

January 27, 2020 · 4:25 am

Princely Flutters to World Super Power in Cricket: India’s Story by Prashant Kidambi

Gideon Haigh in Weekend Australian, 24 January 2020, where the title runs

In December 2011, Rahul Dravid delivered a justly celebrated speech at the Australian War Memorial, the Bradman Oration, lyrically evoking the plurality and diversity of cricket in the subcontinent. “The Indian cricket team is in fact, India itself, in microcosm,” he said, describing a dressing room drawn from every corner of the country that spoke 15 different languages and stood “not just for sport, but possibility, hope, opportunities”.

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Filed under child of empire, cricket and life, cricket governance, cricket tamashas, cricketing icons, memorable moments, politics and cricket, unusual people, welfare through sport

October 11, 2019 · 2:16 am

Cricket Squads Feted in Colombo: Monies and Pictorials Galore

Pictures from Daily Mirror … and …. Daily News … where the headline = “Sri Lanka’s cricketing heroes rewarded with US$ 145,000″

Rumesh Ratnayake, Dasun Shanaka, Lahiru Tirimanne and Asantha De Mel with lesser lights

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Filed under cricket and life, cricket governance, cricket tamashas, memorable moments, patriotic excess, performance, player selections, politics and cricket, Sri Lanka Cricket, T20 Cricket, welfare through sport

October 10, 2019 · 4:02 pm

In the Manner Michael: Appreciative Thoughts about Michael De Zoysa

ONE = Callistus Davy in Sunday Observer, 6 October 2019: “Michael de Zoysa: If only he could write his own lines!”

In today’s set-up where corruption, dishonestly, cheating and rouge ways hold sway in sections of Sri Lankan society and some people who boast of culture can only put on a face for the cameras, Michael de Zoysa was a cut above the rest and went to his grave on Wednesday evening like the true professional he was. Perhaps Michael de Zoyza will be able to give a better account of himself to his Creator than many others who hobnobbed with him and were no match to his integrity.

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Filed under cricket and life, cricketing icons, memorable moments, Michael de Zoysa, sportsmanship, Sri Lanka Cricket, taking the mickey, tower of strength, unusual people, welfare through sport

September 10, 2019 · 2:48 am

Remembering Joe Hoad, A Bajan Man True

Joe Hoad passed way a year or so back due to a medical mishap. My appreciation of the man and his contribution to Sri Lankan cricket was recorded earlier in Cricketique via a ditty of my own in what may pass for “islander strain:”

Joe’s no Imran Khan,

He’s just a plain Bajan man, man.

You see Joe,

Da man could talk

Boy, how he could talk

That man know how to walk the talk, and even how to talk the walk