Percy Abeysekara, Lanka’s Iconic Cheerleader

Rex Clementine,

The entire team rose up in respect when one of the greatest fast bowler to have played the game Sir Richard Hadlee paid a visit to the Sri Lankan dressing room during the first Test Match in Christchurch. While Hadlee collected a few autographs from the players, he apparently asked Chaminda Vaas how his great pal Percy Abeysekara was. Hadlee has been a great admirer of Percy and had even presented the Sri Lankan cheerleader some of his memorabilia after he saw the Sri Lankan’s knowledge and passion for the game. ‘Percy, don’t lose your voice, Sri Lanka needs it more than you,’ he’s supposed to have written in one of Percy’s autographs.
 
Many players have had a liking for this cheerleader. His knowledge of the game and its history is second to none and Percy comes up with certain anecdotes that stun you at times. Percy has been a usual visitor to the cricket ground even before the country gained Test status and present day Sri Lankan players call him affectionately ‘Uncle Percy’. No doubt that some of his comments have angered overseas players, but none of them have a had a row with him for they know that Percy doesn’t mean any harm. Today in ‘Outrageous moments of Sri Lanka Cricket’, we look back at some of those unforgettable comments by Percy the legend.

Cricketer Inspirations for the SINHALA gedera

Young Lasith Malinga in robes

 Pic Courtesy of Colombo Telegraph

Making a Fetish out of “human error”: BCCI and Dhoni on the DRS in Cricket

SEE http://thuppahi.wordpress.com/2012/02/19/hegemonic-idiocy-bcci-and-dhoni-on-the-drs-in-cricket/

OR http://www.islandcricket.lk/columns/michael_roberts/160450219/drs-indias-hegemonic-idiocy

Asantha De Mel considers Sri Lanka’s Cricket Selections

BBC Sandeshaya Service

The Sri Lankan cricket team do have enough talent and it is for the players to enhance their performances, says the newly appointed chief selector. Asantha de Mel, who replaced Duleep Mendis as the head of selection committee, said the new selectors will discuss the issues related to the recent poor performance of the team when the squad is back in Sri Lanka after their current tour of South Africa. Sri Lanka has only secured a single Test win, a historic win against South Africa in South Africa, since spinner, Muttiah Muralitharan retired from Test cricket, last year.

The team has also failed to secure a single series since Tillekaratne Dilshan’s took over the reigns from Kumar Sangakkara, at the end of cricket World Cup co-hosted by India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Kohli’s finger will only raise the hackles of hecklers in Aussieland

This is an extract from the Spin, the Guardian’s free weekly cricket email. To sign up, click here.

The Witticisms of Crowds: For the Indian cricket team, 4 January was a long and frustrating day. At the SCG Australia scored 366 runs and lost only a single wicket. At stumps Michael Clarke was 251 not out from 342 balls, with 31 fours and a single six. Brilliant as the innings was, none of these statistics was as remarkable as another number of the day, one that was provided by the mouth of a Cricket Australia spokesman rather than the bat of the team captain. For the first time since CA had been keeping such records, not a single spectator had been thrown out of the ground during the day’s play.

Aussie cricket knives on the slash after debacle at Newlands

Predictably Australian cricket writers have pulled out their bayonets as well as machetes and are piercing and hacking  their cricket team. See the items referred to belwow. That said, I must say that the slash and burn has not extended to conspiracy theories and muckraking of the sort that feature when the Sri Lankan side does poorly … or even when it loses a final after doing well to get there! Again, Michael Clarke’s summary criticism of slef and team was as on the spot and not marked by bromide and veneer. It reveals sense and sensibility, as well as fortitude and determination to fight back. Web Editor.

*”Post-mortem results for the Nightmare at Newlands are obvious: heads must surely roll,” by Peter Lalor in The Australian 12 Nov. 2011,

* “Horrible’: Australia bowled out for 47,” by Greg Baum, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 Nov. 2011.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/horrible-australia-bowled-out-for-47-20111111-1n9wv.html#ixzz1dTDQ8SjV

Carl Rackemann as farmer politician … so Sanath is not alone

Michael McKenna, in The Australian,22 September 2011

CARL Rackemann put the fear into batsmen when he took the ball – now the former Test cricketer’s ambition of taking to the field of politics is gathering the same pace his once-devastating bouncers had.  A third-generation Kingaroy farmer, the 12-Test bowler is firming as the frontrunner to win the state seat of Nanango, held for 40 years by former premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen, as a candidate of Bob Katter’s Australian Party. The start-up political entity is expected to win registration within days from Queensland’s Electoral Commission, as the party ramps up its campaign to challenge the political mainstream at the next state election, due by March. Party insiders are boasting of a campaign war chest that will exceed $2 million, with more than $500,000 already donated from a disparate band of backers that includes a union, an arms dealer and fishing and ethanol lobbyists normally welded to the Nationals.

That underarm moment in World Cricket History …. so Un-Iconic

 1 February 1981: “Richie Benaud said this the most disgraceful thing he had seen on a cricket field. On February 1, 1981, New Zealand were playing Australia in the third of the best-of-five finals of the World Series in Melbourne. 15 were needed off the final over, to be bowled by Trevor Chappell, younger brother of Ian and Greg. It came down to seven off the last ball with Brian McKechnie on strike. Captain Greg instructed Trevor to roll the ball along the ground. Underarm bowling was still legal, even if unethical, and Chappell’s unsporting act was roundly criticised. After the incident, underarm bowling was banned.” — http://www.sharegoodstuffs.com/2011/09/crickets-most-iconic-moments.htmhttp://

Two Iconic Moments in Sri Lankan Cricket History

Courtesy of http://www.sharegoodstuffs.com/2011/09/crickets-most-iconic-moments.html

 When the scoreboard at Pietermaritzburg Oval read 5 runs in total with 4 wickets down, for Bangladesa  after Chaminda Vaas took a hat-trick and then another wicket in the first over. 

                                                                                                          

 Arjuna Ranatunga reprimands the umpire Ross Emerson during the infamous  contretemps at Adelaide Oval on 23 January 1999 after Eemrson –in what is now known to be a pre-planned move — no-balled Muralitharan for chucking the ball.

For clarification of the events leading up to this incident and a ‘post-mortem’ See Michael Roberts, “Saving Murali: Action On-field and Off-field, 1995-2005, in Roberts, Incursions and Excursions in and around Sri Lankan Cricket, Colombo: Vijitha Yapa Publications, 20011, pp. 111-38 … ISBN 978-955-53198-0-5

Also see articles by Rohit Brijnath, Peter Roebuck, Bernard Whimpress, Glucka Wijesuriya and Michael Roberts in Roberts, Essaying Cricket. Sri Lanka and Beyond, Colombo:  Vijitha Yapa Publications, 2006 ….  ISBN 955-1266-25-0 (pbk) and 955-1266-26-9 (hbk) …………………… where some other striking photographs can be viewed.