Old Anandian cricketer Prasanna de Silva who is in Melbourne and I represented Ananda at school cricket in the sixties. When requested by me to reminisce about our good old cricketing days at school, he cranked up all his memory wheels upstairs to emerge with some incidents that happened during our matches.
We somehow graduated to the under 16 and first XI teams thereafter. Prasanna adds that cricket in the sixties was unadulterated pleasure there were no sledging! Of course, there was good natured banter, and bouncers galore. He can well remember the 1964 Ananda-Dharmaraja encounter at the Police grounds in Kandy. In the sixties Dharmaraja had a reputation of building up ace fast bowlers like Kehelgamuwa and Sonny Yatawara, later Yatawara played for Ananda. Prasanna states that we did not have the trauma of facing Yatawara; however I had the fortune of bowling to Yatawara, when he was having a knock in front of the Nalanda pavilion. I volunteered to bowl to him and he straight drove my off break back to me which I misfielded and hit me smack on the shin. I was writhing in pain and he was so nice that he escorted me to the first aid room straight away for attention.
In 1964 the Rajans had another pair of pace bowlers “Twin Terrors,” in the form of S.U. Mendis and Daya Jayasundera. Prasanna was the last man in and by some miracle managed to survive 3 balls bowled by a spinner. The next over was a maiden, even though he was stuck at his end and he had to face Mendis while he was passing him said to him in a friendly manner, ”Machang if you survive the first two balls the third will be a bouncer”. He did survive the first two balls even though the first was a sizzling yorker. He was taking no chances with the third even before the ball was bowled he dropped his bat and ducked low while covering his head with both hands and elbows. He surely was no batsman but may have been a great entertainer as there was a roar of laughter around the ground! He was spared further agony as he was clean bowled off the next ball; the sound of the shattering timber was sweet music to his ears. He was glad to return to the pavilion with all his body parts intact.
Prasanna recollects providing more amusement to the Kandy spectators while fielding. Tilak was bowling his flighted off spinners to Rajans star bat G.S. Ratnayake. He was fielding at long on. G.S. waltzed down the pitch and played a mighty lofted shot towards long on where he was fielding. He still remembers the pounding of his heart as he watched the ball and all the while moving back to cling to a neat catch. There was a roar from the crowd and plenty of clapping, he was pleased with himself. He was beaming and looking at his team mates expecting them to come running to him to congratulate. Not a soul moved and even the batsmen was motionless at the crease, then to his utter dismay, he noticed the umpire signalling a six and boy “was my face red” in fact I had back peddled a good five to six feet behind the boundary line. By the end of the match I redeemed myself taking four wickets including Gotabay’s one.
Prasanna finally mentions about another off the field happy event that was etched in his memory. At the time, it was customary to host the team for dinner after every match. His turn to host the dinner was after the St Peter’s-Ananda match. At the time, he was living in Vajira Road and Charith Gunasena who played for St Peter’s was his back door neighbour. His mother suggested that he invite Charith too which he happily did, however Charith did not turn up we (the Ananda team mates) had dinner and was having a sing song which was not going well. Then at about 10.30 or so Charith came and sheepishly apologised for the delay and asked if it was okay if a few of his team mates could come too. Of course they readily invited them as there was plenty of food available.
Prasanna remembers who his friends were, they were Darrel Wimalratne, Aubrey Patternot, Peter and Steven de Neise and Charith whose younger brother Gamini was named after their famous uncle Gamini Goonasena, a champion leg spinner for Cambridge University. After the Peterites did good justice for the remaining food, they got back to their singing session. Peter de Niese who was a superb pianist started playing it. The baila and the sing song session went very well until the wee hours of the morning.
The friendship we formed then, not just with our teammates but also with the players of other schools have withstood the test of time and have jelled even stronger. Prasanna thanks those wonderful friends for their friendship and enriching lives with wonderful memories. School cricket undoubtedly moulded them to face the rigours of later life, but even more importantly it gave them so much of joy and happiness in their later years. It is rather unfortunate to curtail Prasanna’s interesting article due to space limitations. ”As they say all good things must come to an end”.
I have mixed feelings about the school cricket we went through in the sixties, from the age of thirteen onwards, all I did was attend practices, and during the off season played for the club called “Silver Sports Club” which we formed with the neighbours around Cotta Road Borella. My studies were left in the back burner and socialising with other students was kept to a minimum. As a result, in my life after school I had to slog hard to raise my head above the water but my love for cricket will never die.
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