Meeting 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. “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.

After graduating, his job came first, ahead of the weekend club matches which were the highest level of domestic cricket in those days. “I moved down to Colombo, and I worked in a rubber firm, I was there for about four years (1975-79),” he recalled. “I didn’t have much time to spend on cricket, every Saturday and Sunday I had to go and follow rubber technology course.”

The promotion of his hometown team, Kandy Cricket Club, to the top division in 1978 prompted a move back home. “I switched my job to British American tobacco in 1979,” he said. “Our factory was in Kandy, so I had the opportunity to play for Kandy CC throughout till 1985.”

He played in the hugely competitive mercantile cricket tournament into the 90s for British American Tobacco and is now involved with the game as a match referee, taking time out from his work with a catering firm to oversee matches. “Those days when we play a match, even after 10-15 years if we see a player, we know each other as friends,” he says. His player page may capture only some cut-and-dried, trivial statistics but not the fond memories and moments of joy the game gave him.