I have not met Anura for some time since I published my third book “Saga of the Maroons,” his help was invaluable for me during that period. I have never met such a talented statistician who had facts and figures at his fingertips be it school cricket or Test cricket. Anura was a guy who never cowed down to anybody since he knew his onions inside out.
He broke his long silence by calling me recently. I hurried along the following day to see him at a place close to Godagama and six foot Anura greeted me warmly. It was a pity that Anura didn’t have any takers at present.
Anura is unique in the scoring fraternity and has held different position in a career spanning 15 years.
When Bandula Warnapura was at the helm, Anura joined SLC as a rookie data entry operator. Some part of his work involved formulating statistics based on scorecards. He worked 20 days per month on a daily payment of Rs 350/day and the balance days of the month he was free to perform scoring duties since he was qualified to do so. During this period Anura sat for the finals of the All Ceylon Cricket Umpires Association final examination and came third in the batch. He recollected that the person who came first was a chap by the name of A.Franke who at present is the manager at the NCC and the guy who came second was a person by the name of Chamara de Silva who is in charge of the scoring duties at Sri Lanka Ports Authority. Anura lamented about the position that he was in now in comparison to the ones who finished first and second in that particular examination.
In the year 2010 he was promoted as the cricket coordinator of Sri Lanka School Cricket.
Anura stressed the fact that during this tenor D.S. de Silva was at the helm of affairs at Sri Lanka Cricket. He pointed out that De Silva was keen to improve the lot of schoolboy cricketers from remote areas and D.S. together with Anura visited those areas to improve their infrastructural facilities and also to give training for those coaches enabling them to obtain licenses. According to Anura, De Silva gave exposure to most of the schoolboy cricketers in the island far and wide.
Anura missed the bus for the second time, when seeking promotion, but this time by a mere whisker when he went for the interview in 2011, the post was Sri Lanka Cricket-School Cricket manager, this time around Anura came second to Carlton Bernadus. Anura agreed that Bernadus had better credentials but he was of the view that he should have got the assistant manager’s post which existed in other areas of SLC. Anura reminisced that some of the members of the panel consisted of D.S. de Silva, Nishantha Ranatunga and Sujeeva Rajapakse.
Anura stated that he was hard done again by the time he appeared again the post was for S.L.C. School Cricket Manager, for the third time he missed out as Senaka Angulugaha got the post.
Further blows came Anura’s way when one guy above got the retiring age down to 57 years, as a matter of fact Anura categorically stated that this blow was targeted at Duleep Mendis who was not in the good books of the higher ups then. Anura lamented that there were guys who were well over that age limit who are still warming the chairs at the citadel.
Anura was also one of the founder members of Sri Lanka Scorers Association, he was also the president of that Association from 2012 to 2013. He was the official scorer of the Royal/Thomian matches from 2003 to 2013.
He now holds the position of Secretary of Sri Lanka Tape Ball Federation.
Tape ball cricket is mainly played in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh. According to Anura tape ball was introduced mainly to simulate turf wicket conditions. The ball weighs 69 gms and is heavier than a cricket ball which weighs 5½ ounces. The cricketers who play tape ball develop strong shoulders and Shoaib Akthar is a classic example. By the way the originator of tape ball cricket is a Sri Lankan by the name of Waruna Kularatne. The present Minister of Sports has an idea of developing tape ball and Anura stated that he was being earmarked to be in charge of this project.
Anura still has many feathers in his cap, he is the Vice President of the Softball Federation of Sri Lanka till 2021.
Regarding the step motherly treatment he was dished out at the S.L.C. Anura candidly replied that he was an active member of the their staff welfare association and he was instrumental in the organization of blood donation camps, New year festivals, Christmas parties, funeral duties etc which did not go down very well with a certain inner circle which were differently inclined.
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