bowlers.
Ari is staring into space and for the first time in years, I’m smoking a cigarette outside of my writing table. Mr Gokulanath says he and all the Royal staff involved in cricket received a Rs 5,000 bonus for delivering the first Royal victory in sixteen years. He starts rocking forward with his eyes closed and mutters. ‘We did nothing… said nothing… and that is why… they pay us.’
Then he leans over his chair, wiry limbs flailing, and vomits prawn curry and arrack into Manouri’s anthurium plant. Ari runs out swearing and returns with a garden hose and a schoolteacher expression.
My bonus to Gokul is not as generous as Rs 5,000, but factoring in the free food and the bottle of Old, he hasn’t done too shabbily. Gokul hisses to Ari about contacting the Thomian Old Boys Association with this information. Ari hisses back.
That weekend, after being sent by Sheila to buy new flowerpots for Manouri, I call every person connected to the 1983 Royal–Thomian I can find. Coaches, teachers, spectators, Royalists, Thomians.
Administrators at Royal College inform me that Mr Satyakumar Gokulanath was dismissed after twenty-nine years of service for misconduct and disgraceful behaviour. Six hundred rupees and much coaxing later, I find the incident involved stolen money from the school sports coffers.
My attempts at contacting Sir Nihal and the head coach are blocked when I foolishly mention that I want to interview them about the 1983 Big Match. I speak to old boys who played in that game, including the vice captain Sarinda Jurangpathy and first reserve Heshan Unamboowe. Both vehemently deny any conspiracy in the ’83 match, and then look at their wrists and excuse themselves a minute after the question is posed.
The only people to verify that Royal used questionable methods are the Thomians I speak with. But none mention sunscreen or a bowler of a thousand actions. Seven claim food poisoning, nine claim ball tampering and four claim that the umpires were bribed with arrack and prostitutes.
Iceberg
Consider these stats:
7 tests, 47 wickets
27 one-dayers, 44 wickets
Best test bowling, 10 for 51 (vs NZ, 1987)
Best one-day bowling, 8 for 17 (1987 World Cup qualifier vs Bermuda)
Bowling is all about how many wickets you take. Your strike rate is how many balls you need to get them. Your average is how many runs each cost. P.S. Mathew’s average was abysmal. He conceded many runs en route to his 91 international wickets.
He once told Charith Silva, when they were sharing a room on tour, ‘An over is six bullets in a gun. I don’t mind firing some into the sky if one hits the target.’
But when it came to the taking of wickets, he was unmatched. Let me illustrate by using one of Ariyaratne’s invented stats. Wickets per match. Number of wickets divided by number of matches. Not rocket science.
My Jinadasa comes equipped with a darker setting. There is a reason that figure is in bold. Here are the greatest all-rounders of the 1980s. Perhaps even some of the greatest cricketers to walk the earth. Here are their wickets per match in tests:
The greatest bowlers of yester-decade, no one within spitting distance of 6.71 wickets per match. This, you will find, is the tip of a chunk of ice at least twice as big as that which sank the Titanic.
The Sister
At first, she is suspicious. She walks around my room, glancing at my cricket books while tightly clutching her bag and umbrella.
‘Please take a seat, Mrs Sabi,’ says Ari, with a bow and a sweeping hand.
‘Who are y’all?’ she asks, not sitting down.
‘We are great admirers of your brother.’
‘Y’all are with that fellow Kuga?’
‘Who?’
‘Kuga. Are you with him?’
‘Who is Kuga?’
Ari raises his eyebrows and I watch her watch us. She does so for some time.
Sabeetha Amirthalingam nee Sivanathan looks very much a woman who wears the shalwar pants and controls the remote. She is plump, with gold rings on her painted toes. Her hair
Ari is staring into space and for the first time in years, I’m smoking a cigarette outside of my writing table. Mr Gokulanath says he and all the Royal staff involved in cricket received a Rs 5,000 bonus for delivering the first Royal victory in sixteen years. He starts rocking forward with his eyes closed and mutters. ‘We did nothing… said nothing… and that is why… they pay us.’
Then he leans over his chair, wiry limbs flailing, and vomits prawn curry and arrack into Manouri’s anthurium plant. Ari runs out swearing and returns with a garden hose and a schoolteacher expression.
My bonus to Gokul is not as generous as Rs 5,000, but factoring in the free food and the bottle of Old, he hasn’t done too shabbily. Gokul hisses to Ari about contacting the Thomian Old Boys Association with this information. Ari hisses back.
That weekend, after being sent by Sheila to buy new flowerpots for Manouri, I call every person connected to the 1983 Royal–Thomian I can find. Coaches, teachers, spectators, Royalists, Thomians.
Administrators at Royal College inform me that Mr Satyakumar Gokulanath was dismissed after twenty-nine years of service for misconduct and disgraceful behaviour. Six hundred rupees and much coaxing later, I find the incident involved stolen money from the school sports coffers.
My attempts at contacting Sir Nihal and the head coach are blocked when I foolishly mention that I want to interview them about the 1983 Big Match. I speak to old boys who played in that game, including the vice captain Sarinda Jurangpathy and first reserve Heshan Unamboowe. Both vehemently deny any conspiracy in the ’83 match, and then look at their wrists and excuse themselves a minute after the question is posed.
The only people to verify that Royal used questionable methods are the Thomians I speak with. But none mention sunscreen or a bowler of a thousand actions. Seven claim food poisoning, nine claim ball tampering and four claim that the umpires were bribed with arrack and prostitutes.
Iceberg
Consider these stats:
7 tests, 47 wickets
27 one-dayers, 44 wickets
Best test bowling, 10 for 51 (vs NZ, 1987)
Best one-day bowling, 8 for 17 (1987 World Cup qualifier vs Bermuda)
Bowling is all about how many wickets you take. Your strike rate is how many balls you need to get them. Your average is how many runs each cost. P.S. Mathew’s average was abysmal. He conceded many runs en route to his 91 international wickets.
He once told Charith Silva, when they were sharing a room on tour, ‘An over is six bullets in a gun. I don’t mind firing some into the sky if one hits the target.’
But when it came to the taking of wickets, he was unmatched. Let me illustrate by using one of Ariyaratne’s invented stats. Wickets per match. Number of wickets divided by number of matches. Not rocket science.
My Jinadasa comes equipped with a darker setting. There is a reason that figure is in bold. Here are the greatest all-rounders of the 1980s. Perhaps even some of the greatest cricketers to walk the earth. Here are their wickets per match in tests:
The greatest bowlers of yester-decade, no one within spitting distance of 6.71 wickets per match. This, you will find, is the tip of a chunk of ice at least twice as big as that which sank the Titanic.
The Sister
At first, she is suspicious. She walks around my room, glancing at my cricket books while tightly clutching her bag and umbrella.
‘Please take a seat, Mrs Sabi,’ says Ari, with a bow and a sweeping hand.
‘Who are y’all?’ she asks, not sitting down.
‘We are great admirers of your brother.’
‘Y’all are with that fellow Kuga?’
‘Who?’
‘Kuga. Are you with him?’
‘Who is Kuga?’
Ari raises his eyebrows and I watch her watch us. She does so for some time.
Sabeetha Amirthalingam nee Sivanathan looks very much a woman who wears the shalwar pants and controls the remote. She is plump, with gold rings on her painted toes. Her hair
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