June 17, 2015 · 12:43 am

The Galle Esplanade and Test Cricket — Life and Times in Pictures

03 Galle Esplanade school cricket in olden times, the 1970s and 1980s —Pic by Nihal Fernando 

Also see Norah Roberts, Galle as Quiet as Asleep, 2nd edn, Colombo, Vijitha Yapa Publications, 2005, ISBN 955-8095-85

22 Aerial View, Galle Ckt & Ramparts Continue reading →

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June 16, 2015 · 11:46 pm

My Test Team for Galle

Michael Roberts, 16 June 2015… an essay drafted on 16th June 2015 before the final XI was selected, but also failing to note that Tharanga was not in the reckoning. The article was sent to islandcricket.lk and The Island for publication, and also presented to Michael de Zoysa and Andrew Fernando with an express request for “critical comments.” De Zoysa’s immediate dissent is incorporated here as a COMMENT at the end with a response.

The retirement of Jayawardene and Dilshan from Test cricket and the impending departure of Sangakkara render the future of Sri Lanka’s cricket team as worrying as intriguing. In chatting with Michael de Zoysa in Colombo early in June we touched on future possibilities and just yesterday a long Skype-chat with Andrew Fidel Fernando in Colombo was extremely enlightening. His prospective Eleven for the Pakistan series worked within the limits of the XV chosen for the series by the SLC Selection Committee.

Sri Lanka cricket team captain Angelo Mathews (R) and team coach Marvan Atapattu chat during a practice session at the Galle International Cricket Stadium in Galle on June 15, 2015. Sri Lanka and Pakistan will play three Tests, five One-Day Internationals and two T20 Series in Sri Lanka between June 17 to August 1. The first Test between Pakistan and Sri Lanka will be played on June 17 at the Galle International Cricket Stadium in Galle. AFP PHOTO/ Ishara S. KODIKARA (Photo credit should read Ishara S.KODIKARA/AFP/Getty Images)

Sri Lanka cricket team captain Angelo Mathews (R) and team coach Marvan Atapattu chat during a practice session at the Galle International Cricket Stadium in Galle on June 15, 2015. Sri Lanka and Pakistan will play three Tests, five One-Day Internationals and two T20 Series in Sri Lanka between June 17 to August 1. The first Test between Pakistan and Sri Lanka will be played on June 17 at the Galle International Cricket Stadium in Galle. AFP PHOTO/ Ishara S. KODIKARA (Photo credit should read Ishara S.KODIKARA/AFP/Getty Images)

However, I intervene first with my choice of XI, guided in part by Fernando — but adding my own twist. The twist arises from the fact that the match is being played at Galle.[1] This background links up with my reasoning that bowlers win matches and that one must enter a match with one’s three or four best bowlers. With Eranga out of contention because of injury and Lakmal in question and without match practice, I hold that our best three bowlers for the sort of conditions that are likely to prevail at Galle are Rangana Herath followed by Dilruwan Perera and Tharinda Kaushal at level pegging. Continue reading →

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June 16, 2015 · 11:10 pm

Village Cricket in Dumbara in the Good Old Days: Ramadhin and Valentine! Gunnepanē vs Amunugama

Tissa Devendra via Eric Robinson, courtesy of The Island, 17 June 2015, ….. http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=126609 where the title is “Cricket to the throb of udakki“

Have you ever been to Gunnepanē, near Kandy, on the Sinhalese New Year Day? If not make a note of it in your 195o diary. (I’ll try and meet you there, if possible). On that day for about the last thirty years there has been an annual cricket match between Gunnepanē and Amunugama, villages in Dumbara, which adjoin each other. The match, which is a local Derby, attended by the total populations of both villages, begins early in the morning, and, although it is a two innings’ game, played under the authorized laws of cricket, it is always brought to a definite decision by nightfall, which is more than can be said for a good many four or five day Test Matches. There has never been a draw yet!

This game stirs up locally all the public excitement associated with Test cricket. But, as there is room on the ground for all the three hundred or more partisans who flock to cheer on their champions, there is no need for them to rise before dawn to queue, as did so many of my friends in England, in 1948, for the England-Australia Tests. Continue reading →

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June 15, 2015 · 1:12 pm

Talking Cricket with Michael de Zoysa, II: Managing Team Camaraderie & Familial Companionship

Michael Roberts, courtesy of islandcricket.lk …. SEE  http://www.islandcricket.lk/columns/michael_roberts/430700215/talking-cricket-with-michael-de-zoysa-managing-familial-companions

The previous administrations of SL cricket revealed considerable acumen in arranging a tour of New Zealand prior to the World Cup 2015. This meant that most of the Sri Lankan players were acclimatized to the conditions governing the Antipodes. There was a down side to this however. Coming on top of arduous ODI series in India and Sri Lanka, the physical demands on the regular players were considerable – so that one can inquire whether a few of the injuries suffered in the Antipodes were a product of overstrain (a thought that is difficult to answer).

Players, coaches and supporting staff cannot think, talk and sleep cricket all the time. They cannot be expected to live in each other’s pocket 24/7 … or even 15/7. Leisure and relaxation tailored to each man’s suite of desires are essential. Familial and female companionship are requisites for those with partners and/or children.

kumar and yehali Kumar & Yehali Sangakkara and their twins

DILSHAN Tillekreratne Dilshan & family Continue reading →

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June 15, 2015 · 8:58 am

Talking Cricket with Michael de Zoysa, I: Managerial Tasks on Tour

Michael Roberts, courtesy of island.ckt … http://www.islandcricket.lk/columns/michael_roberts/430430213/talking-cricket-with-michael-de-zoysa-managers-tasks-on-tour

When composing my essay on Russell Arnold in April last I rang Michael de Zoysa in Lanka in order to get some insights. In passing he indicated that he had just submitted his Manager’s Report on the Tour of NZ and Australia. When I met him for an extended chat in Colombo in late May he indicated that the new Interim Board had not sought him out to discuss this assessment or talk cricket.[1] Neither, it seems, have our ‘erstwhile’ reporters.[2]

MIKE DE ZOYSAMichael de Zoysa is a straight talker and is prepared to level criticism at one’s face. He does not wish his report to be buried. As it happens I know him well. So I can affirm that, apart from considerable executive experience in the private sector, he brings to the cricketing table something I totally lack: the ability to read and decipher turf wickets.** Succeeding the late Ranil Abeynaike he has overseen the management of the SSC grounds and its precious wickets for some time. Continue reading →

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June 15, 2015 · 8:49 am

Starc Magic: In the Footsteps of Alan Davidson

Will Swanton, in The Australian,11 June 2015, with the title “Starc reveals his six vital steps to yorker bliss”

The ball that made Jacques Kallis’s bails spin like catherine-wheel fireworks in the BBL. The ball that hummed and swerved past New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum in a pivotal moment of the World Cup final. The signature ball. The money ball. The curve ball. The fast ball. The curving fast ball. The inswinging, sand­shoe-crushing and stump-splintering 150km/h yorker from Mitchell Starc. The most lethal ball in world cricket. “I’ve spent a lot of time on trying to get it right,” Starc told The Australian ahead of the second Test against West Indies at Kingston’s Sabina Park. “A lot of work has gone into it, trying to get it right.

STARC ET AL-oZ

“Alan Davidson was part of the Western Suburbs cricket club in Sydney, where I’m from, and he always mentioned something like, ‘Your final six balls at practice should be yorkers’. Continue reading →

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June 15, 2015 · 8:33 am

An Arranged Marriage in Cricket Today in 2015? Pakistan-Sri Lanka

Ahmer Naqvi,  courtesy of ESPNcricinfo, where the title reads “Sri Lanka and Pakistan’s arranged marriage”

Some time over the past decade, in a way both subtle and inevitable, Pakistani and Sri Lankan cricket embraced the familiarity, intimacy and resignation of an arranged marriage. For most of the outside world, their relationship is probably defined by the 2009 terrorist attack.*** Yet perhaps the greater truth has been what has happened since. Since 2011, what used to be a biennial cycle of Test tours has become an annual one for the two sides. Moreover, in the past ten years, Sri Lanka have been Pakistan’s most common opponent in Tests and ODIs, and the T20s they’ll play soon will give Sri Lanka the clean sweep as Pakistan’s most regular opponents.MAHELA AND PAKS The teams have more in common than you think, and that includes friendships off the pitch © AFPThe two countries have quite a few things in common, particularly a disdain – both politically and in cricketing terms – for India. Indeed, one of the reasons that Sri Lanka’s cricket fraternity and society at large have been so forthcoming towards Pakistan is because (according to several of them) they know the experience of cricket isolation caused by a state of war. The cricketing culture in both countries is marked by a high tolerance for the unusual, and each of bowling’s latest innovations/sins frequently involves their players.

Continue reading →

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June 12, 2015 · 2:19 pm

How Douglas Jardine’s Scottish heritage influenced his England cricket captaincy

Alex Massie, courtesy of The Nightwatchman … http://www.theguardian.com/sport/the-nightwatchman/2015/may/29/douglas-jardine-scotland-england-cricket-captain-ashes

Late October 1932 and England’s cricketers are travelling from Perth to Adelaide. The journey across the red, desolate, vast expanse of the Nullarbor plain is long and tiring. Three times the party has to change trains. Boredom is an ever-present danger. No wonder discussion turns – as it so often does when cricket-minded folk are cloistered together – to the favoured parlour game of selecting mythical all-time XIs to take on visitors from other lands or even other worlds.

JARDINE--Getty Jardine batting for England–Pic from Getty

A Greatest Englishmen squad is agreed upon – after much argument – captained by Horatio Nelson. The great hero of Trafalgar will lead a team chosen from the Duke of Wellington, Cecil Rhodes, William Gladstone, Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Shaftesbury, Lord Kelvin, Charles Dickens, Joseph Lister, James Simpson, James Watt and George Bernard Shaw. An impressive selection even if picking Shaw ahead of, say, William Shakespeare remains a hard-to-defend wildcard.

It is a selection notable, too, for what it tells us about Englishness. Because many of those chosen are not English at all. Watt and Simpson are Scots, Kelvin was a Belfast-born Glaswegian and Shaw was a Dubliner. Even the Iron Duke was born in Ireland. No fewer than five of the 12 selected were born beyond England’s borders and two of the remaining seven (Rhodes and Lister) made their mark outside England (in Africa and at the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow). Continue reading →

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June 12, 2015 · 1:49 pm

Pissu Percy makes his Peace with Jonty

Courtesy of The Island, 12 June 2015

percy + jonty

In the picture is Sri Lanka’s renowned cheerleader Percy Abeysekera (on right) who met South Africa’s Jonty Rhodes at the R. Premadasa Stadium recently when the latter was here for a short coaching stint with the Sri Lanka National team. At this meeting the legendary player, world famous for his fielding abilities, remembered how he once misfielded a ball during an international match before Percy picked it up away from the boundary line in fine style falling over, even with his National flag in one hand. Then Jonty had commented quickly: ‘Percy, you are a better fielder than me’. Continue reading →

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May 28, 2015 · 6:41 pm

Dancing with the Dashing Keith Miller, Brighton 1943

Alan Butcher, courtesy of ESPNcricinfo, where the title is “Keith and Marjorie”

The lady sitting opposite me with clear blue eyes and smooth unlined skin was once a very attractive young woman. I know this without having to look at the photographs of her younger self spread out on the table between us. In fact, I knew it even before I arrived at my mother’s house to meet her neighbour Marjorie Evans for the first time. How did I know this about the 93-year-old I was now sharing a cup of tea with as I enjoyed her reminiscences of the past? Well, in 1943, as a member of the Auxiliary Training Service, she was posted to Brighton and placed in a “hush hush” unit. While there, she, along with some colleagues, attended dances at the Grand Hotel Brighton.

KEITH MILLERThe RAAF organised dances for their men. The ATS girls were invited. The men liked to have girls to dance with, and the ATS girls… well, they liked to dance with the men too! At some stage during one of these dances Marjorie Rowe, as she was then, attracted the attention of the cricketer whom venerated writer Neville Cardus called “an Australian in excelsis: then a pilot, he was that renowned ladies man Sergeant Keith Miller of the RAAF.” Continue reading →

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