While Colombo has her attractionsand may be far more colourful, wearing her finery with the flamboyance of an attackingbatsman, and Kandy, the ancient kingdom up in the hills, has the scenery to matchthe majesty to go with such soundings, it is
Trevor Chesterfield09-Oct-2007While Colombo has her attractionsand may be far more colourful, wearing her finery with the flamboyance of an attackingbatsman, and Kandy, the ancient kingdom up in the hills, has the scenery to matchthe majesty to go with such soundings, it is often Galle in the balmy south whichattracts, beguiles and seduces the tired tourist or visitor.It is all about first impressions. How to express this, however,is far from easy. It comes against the backdrop of a nation which having, formore than a century, embraced that quaint English pastime of cricket, explainslittle. What was needed was to lift the black sarong which covered a nation’sbruised psyche to discover some of the truth.Yet what truth are we discussing here? What truth are we seeking?How can a Western mind, long seduced by that `quaint English pastime’hope to expect to understand such diverse spiritual needs and demands of a SouthAsian nation and her pride? Love of a country is one thing. Love of a peopleand the ambiance is something else. It is the latter which draws and attracts.To explain some of this needs patience. The starting point is easy: it expressesthe experiences of a traveller in love with a people and the surroundings.
Unless you have ridden through the colourful jigsaw which isColombo in one of those dilapidated three-wheelers, it is easy to overlook theoften gregarious mood, spicy tastes and flamboyant character which inhabitsthe city. It is the mood which speaks of Sri Lanka.There is, too, an inclination, as you are whipped along a multitudeof routes, past a succession of roadside stalls and along tree-lined avenues,to mistake the psyche of what is the complex political fabric of the country.On the face of it a nation of contrasts: weary from a long, exacerbated conflictwhile the conscious soul of the country had, by September 2002, been reawakened,if not entirely refreshed, through the exuberant success of Sanath Jayasuriya’sheroes in the wake of the International Cricket Council’s Champions Trophy.It is through their clear white-flannelled images, or in thiscase, the royal blue and gold colours worn with pride, which brings a new smile.The results they have achieved from that tournament masked the true identityof this South Asian nation of diverse cultures and warm-natured people withtheir personable friendliness which has been allowed to re-emerge. Considerthis: by May 31 1999 they had developed a querulous stance and displayed themood of a nation in mourning with the bruised ego of former World Cup champions:all showing their various forms of grief. By the end of April 2000, the remarkablesuccess of Jayasuriya’s side at Test and limited-overs level had becomemore than just a pick me up job. Beating Australia (at home) 1-0, and SteveWaugh would not have quibbled with a 2-0 series defeat; success overs Zimbabwe(also 1-0) in Zimbabwe and then 2-1 over Pakistan in Pakistan, underlined thetransformation Dav Whatmore and Jayasuriya worked hard to achieve during a matterof 11 months.After that it was partly a roller coaster ride. Not that itwas done without anguish and against a backdrop laced with the sort of politicalintrigue, paranoia and undertones hard to imagine, and with politicians dabblingin such matters as team selection. Then again, if we read the thoughts of thesecond Ceylon-born captain, Churchill Hector Gunasekara, written more than halfa century earlier, is this not what those early pioneers of the game warnedagainst? For someone who was a couple of generations ahead of his time, CH orHector Gunasekara, was an internationalist. Whether this comes from his yearswhile studying medicine at Cambridge and later playing for Middlesex, Englishcounty champions in 1919, is unclear.He certainly argued how the game was more important than theindividual yet must also symbolise the spirit of the individual. He warned in1950 how the politician and unscrupulous administrator would use the game tofurther their own interests. This was not the legacy he wanted for later generationsof Sri Lankans. He wanted a game free of tainted administrators and run by thosewhere not only its servants but also had strong international respect.
Some of this philosophy in included, along with revealing insightamong a variety of highly informative unpublished papers. In them CH comes acrossas a highly astute thinker, well ahead of his time. For one thing, the RoyalCollege educated allrounder did much to lay the foundation of the modern game’searly thinking. He was a progressive in an era where conservatism ruled muchof society and it showed in what followed.
Preserved and cared for byhis son, Channa, a former stylish Ceylon opening batsman, the brief Memoirsand Impressions offer a rare insight and reflection of the game’shistory in the pre-Sri Lanka Test era. There is some highly informative materialabout this growth, transformation and transition. An enjoyable conversationalist,Channa is not shy when it comes to expressing an opinion or recalling eventswhere his father was involved in a Colombo society which was as elegant in characteras it was in old world courtesy.Captain of the Royal College team of 1912, he was denied ablue at Cambridge when two years later World War One broke out. He was the firstof a famous line of Ceylonese and Sri Lankans who have played the game at countylevel; yet it was his unique position as the first which gives him a place onhonour. He was a firm advocate in what is now called the `bleep’test; a fitness exercise whereby players run short bursts of forty or fiftymetres as a way of improving physical skills as part of a daily routine. Andthis was in 1930.While he admired the county game and other aspects of lifein England, there was also a matter of colour prejudice (or plain racism). `Itwas something,’ he wrote `which we of the East had to get over atthat time. It was our greatest obstacle.’ In those days it was not referredto as racism; the term prejudice was then seen to be the more moderate wordto explain what is still myopic Raj xenophobia. Hector shrugged it aside asif it came from a section of society that knew little better; the ruling classcan be like that: snobbish and uncaring. Human rights was an unknown term andto him, the friendship earned through the game overrode such chauvinistic opinions.It was through such association that he helped Ceylon achieve a form of unofficialinternational recognition.While in England for the last time in 1922 and playing forMiddlesex, he received a letter from Dr John Rockwood, then president of therecently formed Ceylon Cricket Association and a friend of the Gunasekara family.In the letter he was asked to talk to Sir Francis Lacey, then secretary of theMarylebone Cricket Club, to have the MCC side to stop off at Colombo on an officialvisit with games against the All-Ceylon side.One of the criteria was that a country where MCC or Australianteams toured or stopped off, such as places as Colombo, there should be an officialnational body to look after the team’s interests. Dr Hector Gunasekarawas able to promise the MCC secretary that now there was an official body onthe island, this would not present a problem. Agreement was reached but therewere other concerns. One was criticism of selection policy and teams selected.It was he same old cliché, because officials of some of the first-classclubs did not agree with selectors, players were barred from playing in teamsagainst touring sides.It was what Dr Gunasekara considered an intolerable situationand when he voiced an opposition view to demands that certain players withdrawfrom the side to play an MCC side led by Arthur Gilligan in 1924/25. While theselection of the players was resolved, it left the doctor with a feeling ofdisquiet at how petty jealousies were not helping the independence of the ACCor its growth as a national body.This is part of an expurgated version of a chapter on Dr C H (Hector) Gunasekara in a book being written by Trevor Chesterfield on Sri Lanka’s captains titled: Our Golden Lions: Sri Lanka’s cricket captains. Although New Zealand-born and currently South African-based, Trevor Chesterfield is a veteran cricket writer with a deep interest in Sri Lanka cricket history. He is managing editor of an international cricket website. Part two: The Years of Challenge, will appear shortly