Tour Diary
A subdued build-up
6 am Saturday
Sriram Veera
25-Feb-2013
6 am Saturday. The Durban North Beach front is sparkling in its stillness. The surfers are up and about. The water must be warm. There is something graceful about how these surfers move. Elsewhere the city is slowly waking up. The coffee-shops are open; men are dry-wiping the empty seats. The walkers are ambling along. Cars disappear into the city. There is a man creating enticing shapes and figures from the mounds of the beach sand. The children stand around him laughing. There is something serene about this Durban morning.
Serenity seems be the theme of this Champions League Twenty20 as well. Everything appears quiet compared to the frenzy that the IPL threw up last year here. The pubs that were screaming about the IPL aren’t promoting the CLT20. The stadium too is quieter. On Friday evening the seats were being cleaned by women in uniformed tunics; in the middle, around the 30-yard circle, a few men were spray-painting the grass with tournament logos. The Central Districts team were practising alongside; balls were being hit long and hard into the empty stands. Arms were being freed, minds were being cleared. On the other side of the ground, the local groundstaff was indulging in the one hour of daily football. Screams of joy. Yelps of agony. Men enjoying themselves like kids. It’s not a common sight - an international team practising cheek by jowl with local staff indulging themselves in some horseplay.
There were no advertising hoardings around the boundary, no crazy neon lights flashing. That was what first hit the eye when one walked into the empty stadium before last year’s IPL. Stephen Fleming held a press conference, standing at the boundary edge and talking to a couple of us. The media hadn’t yet descended - around 150 accredited passes have been given this year for the entire tournament. For IPL it was over 300.
Full postOf unpredictabililty and sponsorship banners
The matches in the tri-series have been unpredictable so far, and that element of the unexpected has spilled over to routine press conferences as well
Siddarth Ravindran
25-Feb-2013
The matches in the tri-series have been unpredictable so far, and that element of the unexpected has spilled over to routine press conferences as well. On Sunday, the print press boycotted MS Dhoni’s media briefing after the Indian captain turned up more than 90 minutes after the big defeat to Sri Lanka.
Around 11 in the morning on Tuesday, the press started to assemble in the small second-floor hall behind the VIP enclosure for the captains’ regular pre-match interviews. Not many noticed what was amiss, but the usually affable media manager, Brian Thomas, lost his cool and started making frantic phone calls.
The trouble was that Sri Lanka’s representative to next month’s Champions League tournament, Wayamba, were to have a press meet later in the evening and Wayamba’s sponsor wall was in position behind the area where MS Dhoni and Ross Taylor were to address the media shortly. How could Dhoni and Taylor speak in front of corporate logos not associated with the tri-series? The tournament’s sponsors would be furious at their companies’ symbols missing out on a couple of minutes of precious airtime. And the official broadcasters wouldn’t be thrilled either.
Full postMeeting Mahinda Pethiyagoda
When I bumped into Mahinda Pethiyagoda , a lean 56-year-old with an accountant’s air about him, the first thing he spoke about on learning I am Indian was an obscure three-day match in 1974
Siddarth Ravindran
25-Feb-2013
When I bumped into Mahinda Pethiyagoda, a lean 56-year-old with an accountant’s air about him, the first thing he spoke about on learning I am Indian was an obscure three-day match in 1974. “Gavaskar… Wadekar, I bowled against them when they toured Sri Lanka,” he recalled with obvious pride. That was the only official first-class match Pethiyagoda played.
In these days of the IPL and billion-dollar television deals, cricketers can make a pretty pile through the game. It wasn’t always so, especially in Sri Lanka where even as late as the mid-nineties, their biggest stars were simultaneously angling for careers outside cricket - Arjuna Ranatunga was in insurance while Aravinda de Silva owned a trading firm.
Money was even scarcer in cricket in the decades before Sri Lanka attained Test status, and while school cricket flourished, many gave up the game after college to focus on full-time non-cricketing jobs. Pethiyagoda was one of those for whom making a living came in the way of a full-fledged cricket career.
He is a product of one of Kandy’s most famous schools, Dharmaraj College, which has a long cricketing tradition and counts Chamara Kapugedera among its alumni. “Five years I played for the school’s first XI, from 1970-74, captaining in 1973,” he said. “I was getting a lot of wickets as an opening bowler, through those performances, I got picked for the Board President’s XI against India in 1974.” Other highlights for him were matches against an Australian schoolboy team, which included future top-order Test batsman Graham Yallop, and teams from Tamil Nadu.
Full postItalian food, glorious food
By Peter Della Penna
Cricinfo
25-Feb-2013
By Peter Della Penna
I’m pretty sad that the ICC WCL Division 4 Tournament in Bologna, Italy, is finished. I don’t really mind so much that the games are over, but I’m going to miss the lunch spreads put together by the Federazionale Cricket Italia at each match. This is the first tournament I’ve covered where the organizers have run out of food at lunch because the players and volunteers have gone back for seconds, thirds and fourths.
As an Italian-American, I don’t really feel like I’m much of an outsider in the way that perhaps I should in the Asian and West Indian dominated US cricket community … until it’s time for the lunch break. A member of the MCC touring party that came to California and Florida this past March for a series of matches was discussing how their tour had gone while we sat down together over a pre-game meal before one of their final matches in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. At one point, he voiced his confusion and frustration at the lack of variety in the food they had been served all tour.
“We came over here expecting hot dogs and hamburgers at tea,” said the touring member, “but all we’ve eaten since we landed here are curries.”
Full postRain keeps Williamson nervous
One of the reasons Dambulla is favoured as a one-day venue is because it is in the country’s north-eastern dry zone, with little rain from February to September
Siddarth Ravindran
25-Feb-2013
One of the reasons Dambulla is favoured as a one-day venue is because it is in the country’s north-eastern dry zone, with little rain from February to September. That is why there had been no wash-out in 39 previous ODIs at the stadium, a streak that came to a wet end on Thursday.
An army of white T-shirted groundstaff already had the covers in place at the scheduled start of the match, in anticipation of the torrential downpour that lashed the stadium for an hour. Once that stopped, the many tyres holding the covers in place were rolled off, raising hopes of play. But those expectations were dashed when, like a line-and-length man taking over from a tear-away quick, a steady drizzle replaced the earlier storm. Two hours of that meant everyone would have to reassemble again on Friday for a fresh start.
While it frustrated most people, one man would have been particularly frazzled. Kane Williamson was itching to get off the mark in international cricket and show the world why he was dubbed a future Michael Clarke after his maiden first-class century, at the age of 18.
Full postMangoes at midnight
After matches, on the way back to Dambulla town from the stadium, it’s hard to miss a string of ramshackle shops by the roadside selling a wide variety of fruits and vegetables
Siddarth Ravindran
25-Feb-2013
After matches, on the way back to Dambulla town from the stadium, it’s hard to miss a string of ramshackle shops by the roadside selling a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. These shops have a framework of rickety wooden poles, usually topped off by a flimsy corrugated metal roof and illuminated by a bunch of naked bulbs hanging low. A fairly commonplace sight, you might think, but what makes these outlets unique is that they are open through much of the night, prompting the question, “Who goes grocery shopping at midnight?”
It turns out that Dambulla is the region’s hub for sale of fruits and vegetables. It houses the country’s largest wholesale market for agricultural produce, the Dambulla Dedicated Economic Centre (DDEC), set up in 1999 to help farmers from surrounding areas get better value for their wares. Farmers from places such as Nuwara Eliya and Jaffna bring in their produce which are sold in Dambulla and then transported to nearby cities such as Kandy and Vavuniya. This also explains why Dambulla sometimes gives the impression of being overrun by trucks overloaded with radishes.
The DDEC is located on the highway to Kandy, one of the two main roads in the town, the other being the one leading towards Colombo. The tiny shops which caught the eye on the way back from the stadium formed part of an unorganised wholesale market where much of Dambulla’s agricultural transactions took place before the DDEC swallowed up big chunks of their business. The shops are on the road to Colombo, and exist on the hope of attracting traders on that route and some spillover business from those at the DDEC. Already barely getting by, they could soon vanish to make space for widening the highway.
Full postWhere the streets have Mendis' name
In Sri Lanka, like pretty much everywhere else in the subcontinent, cricketers are among the country’s biggest stars
Siddarth Ravindran
25-Feb-2013
In Sri Lanka, like pretty much everywhere else in the subcontinent, cricketers are among the country’s biggest stars. It is no surprise then, that they are much sought-after as brand ambassadors. Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene are ubiquitous in Colombo, beaming at the world from innumerable shop signs and hoardings as they peddle a soft drink. Much of the Sri Lankan team is featured in an advertisement for a leading telecom service provider at several prominent junctions of the city. Ajantha Mendis is usually spotted on large signboards in petrol bunks asking: “What fuels your pride?”
In the historic Hill Country town of Matale, though, the outdoor advertising doesn’t stop at billboards and shop signs. It extends to the street signs as well. Every street in town has a board with a picture of Mendis celebrating on the left portion, the street’s name in three languages on the top right with a motor insurance company’s ad below it. It’s perhaps the town with the most uniform and easy-to-read signs around. Over-commercialisation isn’t all bad, eh?
Full postNuwan Pradeep: Sri Lanka's latest maverick
Sri Lanka’s knack of picking unorthodox cricketers out of nowhere continues
Sidharth Monga
25-Feb-2013
Sri Lanka’s knack of picking unorthodox cricketers out of nowhere continues. The replacement for Lasith Malinga, who is out of the second Test with a stiff knee, is a similar story. Until three years ago, Nuwan Pradeep hadn’t played any cricket with a leather ball – and he is 23 now. He won a pace contest, impressed the talent scouts with his pace in a soft-ball event, and was sent straight to Sri Lanka Cricket’s academy.
Pradeep doesn’t look as strong, his round-arm is not quite the slingshot, he is not quite the Malinga, but he has attributes: pace, and according to observers, outswing and reverse-swing. The pace and the round-arm action come because the tennis balls wouldn’t travel. Ranjit Fernando, national selector and his coach during Sri Lanka A’s tour of Australia, recommends Pradeep highly.
“Does not have any cricketing background,” says Fernando. “Never played with a cricket ball till three years ago. Came from a fast-bowling competition arranged by the Maharaja about three years ago. He was the fastest bowler in the competition. Bowled in Australia. There were no speed guns, but to me he bowled quicker than all the Australian bowlers. Being a slinger, he doesn’t have much bounce, but I feel he is someone to watch out for. He is quick, you can see it. Someone like him keeps on coming at you all the time, so is hard to negotiate on such wickets. He is also very accurate.”
Full post'It was like Michael Jackson coming'
P Sara Oval, the venue for the third Test of this series, is the only ground in Asia where Don Bradman played
Sidharth Monga
25-Feb-2013
P Sara Oval, the venue for the third Test of this series, is the only ground in Asia where Don Bradman played. He did so on a 20-yard pitch. In Brightly Fades the Don, Jack Fingleton writes: “It is possible one of her male assistants (the round had a lady curator) measured the pitch and not she. The Australian batsmen found the going rather tough in the morning. It was hard to get the ball away, and it was Ian Johnson who discovered largely why.
“He had his doubts about the pitch, measured it and found it was only twenty yards. From that point onwards the Australians bowled from two yards behind the crease and everybody was happy.”
An 18-year-old who saw the match live from a crowd of 20,000 which, according to The Janashakthi Book of Sri Lanka Cricket, occupied every inch of space right up to boundary line, has a slightly different account. That 18-year-old was Chandra Schaffter, of the Tamil Union Club, who played three first-class matches in the fifties and also hockey for Ceylon. “Bradman, I think with all his experience, realised it was short, and he was the one who pointed it out,” says Schaffter. “He mentioned it to the umpires, they measured it again, and then rectified it.” Take your own pick, Fingleton’s realism, or Schaffter’s romanticism.
Full postAn evening with Imran
At 57, Imran Khan still stands tall and lean
Nagraj Gollapudi
25-Feb-2013
At 57, Imran Khan still stands tall and lean. The Pathan lineage is reflected in those broad shoulders. There isn’t any fat noticeable.
This was the first time I had seen Imran in person. He still looked the same man who charged in with a purpose, with that lovely slinging action, and always managed to retain a confident demeanour regardless of the match situation. He motivated his troops with words that could spur them on to do things they thought they could never do. He came back from retirement to nearly win a Test series against the mighty West Indies in 1987.
Five year later, at 40, he retained the hunger to lead Pakistan to a World Cup triumph. Later he would build a cancer hospital in memory of his mother; he is now raising funds to start a university in Miawali. What a life.
Full postMost Read
Writers