I always wanted to interview him and at last I got the opportunity and it was a pleasure to go to the “Millenium City” to meet the grand old man himself. It was a pity that he was bed ridden due to a recent hip operation, in spite of the discomfort he was going through he was game enough to oblige me.
He grew up in Edward Lane Colpetty and they had lane matches which were interesting and there were some who later on went to play college cricket mostly for Royal.This was in the 1940’s. They had no pads but played with a leather ball, they were embryonic days of cricket stated Geoff. They used to hop onto the bikes and watch school and clubs games and he was fascinated by the SSC’S nice tall trees which dotted the surrounds of the grounds, which reminisced Geoff of London, England. He was delighted by the contrasting styles of batting by Sargo Jayawickrema and F.C. de Saram, the former with his thundering off, on and straight drives and the latter with his workmanlike style of onside play although he could shuffle across and play well on the onside. Their opponents were Tamil Union and Sathasivam was picturesque and stylish to watch with his cap set at a rakish angle. There were pace bowler Fairly Dalpathado, Mahesh Rodrigo and several others, they were a nice crowd, they watched in awe and imbibed a lot of knowledge without realizing. Once the war was over Geoff recalled that he watched fascinated by M.O. Gunaratne who scored a century and bagged 10 wickets. He was the best leg spinner ever produced by Sri Lanka like Clarrie Grimmet. Geoff noted that Lucien de Zoysa used to twist and turn and bowl straight balls. He got a good harvest of wickets at club level due to batsmen being bamboozled playing for turn and getting lbw.
During a Royal-Thomian old boys match at CCC Lucien opened batting and took it so seriously he started taking short singles and collapsed and had to be taken to hospital. In that same match Geoff bumped into late Sirimavo Bandaranaike coming up the stairs at the CCC and cheekily asked her when she was going to bat and she had said, “I am too old for that men” and Geoff was pleasantly surprised. Late H.I Fernando was a talented cricketer who captained Prince of Wales, Moratuwa and played for Ceylon. He was a colorful character who got caught to mischief regarding some dud notes.Geoff recalled that he went off balance and tried to live beyond his means.
At the Royal-Thomian 1952, Royal were all out 90 odd and S Thomas’ were 70 for 6 when Geoff went into bat and the adrenalin flowed. The first 4 balls went for 4 fours the first three through the covers and next a hook for 6 it was a leg spinner who was at the receiving end. At the next match P.I. was the captain and it was 13 for 3 when Geoff went in and at 14 for 4 when P.I. came in he told, ‘let’s teach these bloody Royalist a lesson’. When he got out the score stood at 201. P.I. got a hundred and Geoff 60 odd, a fine partnership of 185 a record held for 50 years.
Geoff married early at 26 in 1962 and had to work in the Daily Mirror as a stringer when he was working as a playground instructor. The Daily Mirror was a tabloid then.
When asked about today’s scribes Geoff mentioned that they try to tell them what the answer should and also they are not humble and pretended to know everything. Geoff use to put a photo of Christ in front of his office desk, and he stated that keeps his feet on the ground. He is a positive thinker and stated that one should be true to yourself which will make one a leader.
When the writer requested to comment on the state of affairs of Sri Lanka cricket, Geoff pointed out that the bane of Sri Lanka cricket was when Asanka Gurusinha was brought back into the fold after more than a decade hibernating in Australia. Geoff stated that Graham Ford and Gurusinha never saw eye to eye and unfortunately Ford decided to leave and then captain Mathews too suffered as a consequence.
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