Cricket starts to make noise in the United States

Liz Clarke, in The Washington Post, 21 May 2012

With the ear-popping crack of a bat, shouts of “Shabash!” rang out on a recent Sunday afternoon at Silver Spring’s Galway Park. “Shabash!” “Shabash!”  The Urdu word for “excellent,” shabash also is a term among cricket players worldwide — whether from India or Pakistan, England or Australia, Jamaica or Guyana — to cheer on outstanding batting, bowling and fielding, the game’s essential skills.

Among cricket’s stateside adherents, the most pressing goal at the moment is making Americans equally fluent in the world’s second-most popular sport, eclipsed only by soccer. To most Americans, cricket is a puzzlement. Even savvy sports fans know little more than it’s traditionally played in white trousers, involves a flat wooden bat and lots of running back and forth. Fewer still realize it has a rich tradition in the United States; it predates by 140 years the national pastime of baseball, which is cricket’s direct descendant.

Hopps on Kumar Sangakkara and the Wisden Cricketers of the Year 2012

David Hopps in cric info

When Kumar Sangakkara challenged Sri Lanka’s political establishment during the MCC Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture at Lord’s last summer, it came as no surprise. His powerful intellect comes with an impulsive nature and a principled belief in right and wrong; his strong sense of national identity carries with it an idealism about how his country should develop after its long terrorist war. The lecture provided a platform to examine the ethics of Sri Lankan cricket; scribbling his speech in spare moments during the England tour, he did not waste his opportunity.

“Writing that speech became a deep personal experience,” says Sangakkara. “I knew there were ways it could be misinterpreted, but it was a story I felt I needed to tell. I was greatly moved by the response, especially in Sri Lanka, where many people seemed to identify with what I was saying.”

Sangakkara credits Ian Healy with his imporvements as keeper, while at event inspiring young kids in Bangalore

Item in The Nation

Sri Lanka’s Kumar Sangakkara on Thursday expressed happiness on being named Wisden’s leading cricketer in the world and one of its five cricketers of the year.  “It’s a great honour. Very humbled and privileged. I have had a good year in 2011. Hopefully, I will have a couple of more fruitful years before I finish,” Sangakkara, the captain of the IPL franchise Deccan Chargers, told reporters here at an event.
Sangakkara said that Australian cricketer Ian Healy’s advice on wicket-keeping helped him a lot.  “When I started, I wasn’t a natural wicketkeeper but it was a case of making sure that you went and spoke to the right people. I have been to a few wicket-keeping coaches. Sometimes, they confused me more than actually teaching me something.

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.

Sri Lanka’s men of letters recall English cricket’s class divide

Frank Keating, in The Guardian, 3 April 2012

Last week’s letter to the editor from Surrey reader David Robinson stirred memories of English cricket’s medieval class divisions when an ornate cluster of forenames and initials determined rank and precedence. How flamboyantly the abundance of initials sported by the current Sri Lanka Test side – from the Jayawardenes (DPMD and HAPW) to the luxuriant UWMBCA (Uda Walawwe Mahim Bandaralage Chanaka Asanka) Welegedara – trump England’s ancient scorecard aristocracy of such as JWHT Douglas and Sir HDG Leveson Gower.

 UWMBCA Welagedera -Pic by Getty Images

Welagedara’s literally hits for six Sri Lanka’s all-time initial charts, beating the notable five of his new-ball predecessor WPUJC Vaas. History’s only England player to equal the four of Essex’s all-rounder and sometime Olympic pugilist John William Henry Tyler Douglas is Lancashire’s VPFA (Vernon Peter Fanshawe Archer) Royle, a one-cap wonder of 1878 who excelled at fielding in the deep and became a country parson.

Miller on Aussies Whistle-Stop at Colombo and its Oval in late March1953

Keith Miller in 1954 in the book,  K. Miller & R.S. Whitington: Gods or Flannelled Fools? London: Macdonald & Co., 1954, pp.146-147. with Comment from Asanga Welikala

Keith Miller in Colombo, 1953

“Equator crossed, the Australian cricketers prepared for their arrival at Colombo and the match against Ceylon that some of the team’s executives, suffering momentary small and selfish-mindedness, had at first striven to have cancelled, forgetting, in their wish for peace and comfort, the difference the playing of such a match would have upon the finances and fortunes of cricket in Colombo.

It was unfortunate, of course, for those twelve players chosen for the match that they had to forgo the pleasure of and novelty of strolling down the tree-bordered lanes of Colombo, ablaze with blue and red flowers; of watching the city’s conjurers causing mango-tree seedlings to grow in a matter of seconds, under coconut-shell cups and dark-blue cloths, into appreciable-sized striplings; of seeing cobras engaged in mortal combat with those white-furred, rat-eyed, swift-striking mongooses – mortal, bloody combat that made one almost sorry for the snake.

Mahela and Kumar: Two Kings bearing Gifts

Steve Brown

More than 250 people attended the Knox Tavern recently for the fundraiser in aid of the Foundation of Goodness, the special guests being Sri Lankan superstars Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara, who hold the world record for any wicket in Test match history and responsible for in excess of 45,000 international runs.

The evening was hosted by well-known cricket author, the quick whited Gideon Haigh who created plenty humour and friendly banter.    Following a video presentation of the achievements and work of the Foundation of Goodness in Sri Lanka, post tsunami, founder of the charity, Kushil Gunasekera, thanked everyone for their attendance,

Cricket Australia’s Chairman, Wally Edwards, Cricket Victoria CEO Tony Dodemaide, both former Australian Test players and Sri Lankan Cricket Foundation of Victoria Chairman, Dr Quintus DeZylva were also present, lending their support.

Sangakkara addressed the audience first and he opened his innings by promising not to speak for one hour and ten minutes as he did in his address to the MCC at Lords in London last year. A polished performer, those in the room would not have minded if he broke his promise as he had the audience in his hands, with a personal plea for compassion in regards to the village of Seenigama, and for the new projects in the war torn north of Sri Lanka.

Open Letter to President from Harry Solomons

Dear Mr President

Your Sri Lanka Cricket Team has just completed a very successful tour of Australia.  They played a style of cricket that brought glory to their homeland and they won many new fans in Australia and world wide.

Their brand of cricket also brought out the true character of the Sri Lanka cricket fan in Australia and rarely have we seen, even in Sri Lanka, the atmosphere, the spectacle and the true splendour of song, dance and cheer as created by the Sri Lanka supporters in Sydney and Melbourne.

So, Mr President, I thought the time was right and appropriate for me to make this plea to you for changes and improvements on behalf of all Sri Lanka cricket fans and, of course, the players.  When you think about it, the game belongs to them, not to you, not to your Ministers and not your Board.

Peter Roebuck’s foster-sons seek share of his African estate

TendulKar’s focus on 100th century hurt his team and country

Michael Atherton, Courtesy of The Times and The Australian,  17 March 2012

CRICKET is a game in thrall to numbers. For all Donald Bradman’s greatness, it is often the failure, by 0.06, that he is remembered for. Other numbers stick in the mind, too: for Brian Lara, the record for the highest score wasn’t enough, 501 sounded so much better. Half an eye on his brand, some quipped. For Sachin Tendulkar, the number obsession, rather like Bradman, is 99 and despite his unbelievable record, it was his failure rather than his great successes that interested people up to last night. He finally broke his drought in the Asia Cup last night against Bangladesh. His previous innings in the tournament when he was dismissed for six, elicited a tweet from an English cricket writer of long-standing: “Can someone just lob a few throw-downs to Tendulkar and get this ridiculous thing out of the way?”