Gamini Dissanayake remembered (24 Aug 1996)

24 August 1996

An appreciation of Gamini Dissanayake

A sustained round of applause filtered through the solemn and dignified atmosphere of the Committee room at "Lords" on a delightful summer day in June 1981. The broad smiles of the Sri Lankan delegates to this all important annual meeting of the International Cricket Conference (as it was then known), Gamini Dissanayake and Nisal Senaratne, said it all. A crucial address by the island`s Cricket Board President, meticulously prepared and authoritatively delivered, had paved the way to open the prestigious doors of the ICC to its Seventh full member and with it, a new era had dawned for Sri Lanka Cricket. Whilst a whole nation applauded and then celebrated this historic admission, the Cricket Board President withdrew to reflect on the future, fully aware that clearing this initial hurdle was but the beginning of what was to be one of the toughest challenges of his life, Politics and Mahaweli included.

Four years later, when Rumesh Ratnayake held into a spectacular return catch to register Sri Lanka`s first ever Test win, appropriately enough, at the venue of the country`s 1982 Inaugural Test, the first of these challenges had been met. The typically charismatic smile re-emerged, but the tears he attempted to conceal conveyed the Board President`s inner feelings.

With dedication, vision, patience, and in later years, even restraint, he gently cradled Sri Lanka`s new cricket status in its infancy, nurtured it through adolescence, and in 1989, confident that it had come of age, handed it over to equally responsible hands.

Fate cruelly cut-short his second innings as President, but Arjuna`s gesture of visiting the "Dissanayake" residence with the World Cup, immediately upon his triumphant return to the country, conveyed the deep feelings not only of cricketers past and present, but that of a nation towards a gentleman administrator par excellence, the like of whom we may perhaps never see again.

A heartfelt thank you, dear departed President, you will always be missed.

Source :: Daily News (https://www.lanka.net/)