He caught the cricket bug as a little kid of six years, watching the likes of Michael Tissera, Noel Perera and T.Jayalingam playing Mercantile matches for “Brook Bonds.”A stalwart of the Nondescript Cricket Club Leo Wijesinghe was his father.
Rohan Wijesinghe the brilliant Sri Lanka Schools batsman in the late seventies could have been a part of the Sri Lanka Cricket team, but it was not to be due to his banking commitments overseas.He learned the rudiments of the game under the watchful eye of Late B.R.Heyn at the BRC nets. He was so gifted that he captained the St Josephs under 14 side at the age of 10.
From 1973 to 1977 he blazed a trail as an attacking opening batsman at Darley Road. He played under late Gary Melder in 1973.At the age of 17 years he was picked to represent Ceylon Schools under the captaincy of late Anura Ransinghe, they played against Pakistan Schools under the captaincy of Javed Miandad. Yohan Gunasekera,Tilan Wijesighe,Ranjan Madugalle and D.L.S. De Silva also took part.
Rohan was a success on that Pakistan tour and as a result was picked for the Sri Lanka national squad.They were to play against the touring Englishmen under the captaincy of late Tony Greig, Rohan was only 21 years of age then.
Rohan opened batting for NCC under the captaincy of Ranjith Fernando they won the Sara Trophy that year, he THEN switched teams and joined CCC played under Michael and they too won the Plum Trophy.
He joined HSBC and took his bat along with him and scored heavily not at the teller but at cricket.Rohan’s pleasing personality was his forte. The higher ups at the bank gave due recognition to the various talents of the smart, nattily dressed young man and he was seconded for service at British Bank of the Middle East Sultanate of Oman, a member of Hong Kong Bank Group.He captained the Sri Lankan cricket club team in Oman.
His love for cricket never deserted him and after his retirement from banking he unlocked his other talent as a cricket writer. In my book Rohan Wijesinghe is in the Scyld Berry class, easily the best cricket writer in England.
SCYLD BERRY
As of interest to the readers, he was born not a mile from the city’s old cricket ground of Bramall Lane, he was christened Scyld, pronounced ‘shild’ by a father who was Professor of English at a university.The name taken from the poem BEOWOLF, is the first recorded in English. Since 1976 he has written about cricket for The Observer. On Sundays in summer he played village cricket in Somerset, and once was good enough and bad enough to have dropped Ian Chappel off his own bowling.(courtesy-“Cricket Wallah” SCYLD BERRY).
Rohan got the ‘wet rag’ treatment in some of the local newspapers and the gentleman that he was he took it in his stride. Ultimately his talent was spotted by an English writer when Rohan was writing articles for the Sri Lankan cricket carnival souvenir.This tournament was played by old boys of different schools in Sri Lanka.
With the help of this English guy he has published a top notch cricket book called “Legends of Cricket.
”If you have a sense of humour you will be chuckling throughout as you read this splendid book; if you haven’t well it could help you to develop one.Time and again the poet in Rohan comes out in the pages.
His style of writing will be a breath of fresh air for the readers because our scribes although they do a fine job some how there reporting is mundane and rigid, Rohan has been brave enough to write out of the box and his article on Buddhi Kunderam is well worth the price of the book. Rohan had practically gone through all the legends without stepping on their toes, it’s a pity that he was not offered a public relations post at the SLC,
This book has class written all over it.
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