Teles Fernandopulle Obituary (30 Jun 1998)

30 June 1998

Teles no more

Elmo Rodrigopulle

Teles Fernandopulle one of Sri Lanka's best wicket keepers of the 50s and 60s passed away after a brief illness and his funeral took place yesterday at Kanatte in the presence of a distinguished gathering.

Teles who began his cricketing career at St. Benedict's College Kotahena was a natural when it came to donning gloves and in school showed promise of turning out into being one of the best of his kind. On leaving school he did the work behind the stumps for the Tamil Union and his consistency would certainly have earned him a Ceylon cap if not for yet another Benedictine wicket keeping great Ben Navaratne who was Ceylon's number one keeper at that time.

In those days unlike today where a lot of cricket is being played, foreign teams rarely made visits here other than to play in what was called whistle stop matches.

Teles continued to play for the TU and was a member of the team that won the Saravanamuttu Trophy in the fifties.

As a schoolboy at St. Benedict's I had the good fortune of playing in the company of Teles for the Tamil Union under the captaincy of the late Rex Breckenridge and what an asset Teles was to me and the other bowlers. He would study the weakness of all opposing batsmen and after each over he would proffer advice to the bowlers which was of great help.

I benefitted from his advice and had the honour of winning the Best Bowler's prize when Tamil Union won the Daily News trophy in 1960. That was when I was in the prime of leg spinning, googly prowess.

Teles was also a more than ordinary batsman and made several big scores for the club. In addition to his cricket he was also a good tennis and billiards player.

We enjoyed many happy and memorable moments at the Old Bens playing billiards. We were a foursome at that time - the late Leslie Lord and Teles, Percy Perera the former best cager shooter in Asia and myself. Also in that billiard team was Anton Weerasinghe. And what interesting moments we enjoyed.

The Fernandopulle brothers in addition to Teles all kept wickets for St. Benedict's which will be a record that will never be equalled or beaten. Teles' brothers were Bernard, Cyril, Fausta, Anston, Quentin, Reginald, Camillus and Iraneus.

Teles was also a great raconteur and had a wonderful sense of humour. He was always good company.

May his soul rest in peace.

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