The curator of the Galle Stadium, Jayananda Warnaweera, has done an astounding job in resurrecting it after it was devastated by the tsunami in 2004, writes S. Ram Mahesh.
Sunday, July 27: The diary, an avowed social butterfly, is in Crescat, the place where everyone who is anyone in Colombo craves to be seen. It’s all rather unpretentious: a multi-level shopping mall, a food court, a pub next door. The formula, simple as it is, works like a charm. The diary bumps into first-Test centurion Malinda Warnapura. With the first Test over a day early, the Sri Lankan players have time to savour the success. The left-handed opener samples North Indian food; not a person disturbs him. Muttiah Muralitharan is a repeat visitor, the diary is informed, but no sign of the great man today. Robin Singh, the Indian fielding coach, has been spotted in these parts as well. The day ends rather well with the diary petulantly refusing a request for a photograph, throwing a tantrum with the best of them, and walking off with its nose in the air. The diary might have cut an even more dashing figure had the napkin, which fastened itself to the diary’s chin after a considered meal, been removed, but no one — nay, not even the diary — wins it all.
Monday, July 28: Well, well, well, what have we here? Ian Bishop swings a golf club in the hotel lobby as if it were a matchstick; well not quite, because one doesn’t go around swinging matchsticks, but you get the picture. Bish, as he is known in close circles (which sadly the diary isn’t part of), is polite, soft-spoken, and possessed of a sharp brain: qualities that hold the former West Indian fast bowler in good stead in the commentary box. But for a back injury, this man would have been the greatest of them all. Sir Vivian Richards’s words, not the diary’s.
Tuesday, July 29: The diary returns to Galle three years after visiting the tsunami-devastated coastal city. The diary had yet to assume its chatty, confident tone; it was then a modest avatar known as the tri-series notebook (a faux pas that still makes it blush, but the diary digresses, never a good idea when discussing matters most serious). That trip, made possible by V. V. Krishnan, The Hindu’s indefatigable photographer, was like no other. Nearly eight months after the tragedy, the cricket ground was sodden, the tsunami’s high watermark in the indoor nets served as a piquant reminder of the tragedy, and Jayananda Warnaweera, the curator, was nursing a mid-afternoon drink. This time, it’s unrecognisable: nothing is as it was, save Warnaweera and his drink. Gossip apart, the man has done an astounding job in resurrecting the stadium. A different dispensation at the centre helped, says Warnaweera. As did support from patrons in Sri Lanka and beyond. Says Warnaweera: “I cried for weeks after the tsunami. But then I decided we must get it back. Galle is Galle, it’s a beautiful ground, Shane Warne got his 500th wicket here, there are lots of records associated with the ground. And I was very happy when England played a Test here last year.” Speaking of Warne, didn’t the leg-spinner pitch in? “He made big promises, but he hasn’t sent a cent,” says Warnaweera. Then perhaps realising he has said too much, the former off-spinner adds, “Warne mailed that he’ll send more. Maybe it is on the way.”
Wednesday, July 30: The diary has been insanely — and undeservedly — fortunate in its young life. As if being paid to write about sport isn’t enough, it gets sent to some of the most beautiful places in the world. The hotel a wise man books it into at Galle is a corker. Set on tree-rich hillock that overlooks the sea — so that the diary wakes up groggily to the sight of blue-green waves foaming at the rocks a sharp drop from its balcony — the hotel is one of the few coastal structures here that wasn’t destroyed by the tsunami. Its generator got taken out, but its quaint, Dutch-styled rooms thankfully weren’t affected. The only pity is that the environment isn’t conducive to work; the diary in any case needs few excuses to slacken.
Thursday, July 31: The longest ever break between the first and second overs on the first day of any second Test is recorded today. Before you nose-in-Wisden types assault the gentle, capable souls at the Sportstar desk, let the diary add a disclaimer. It made the whole thing up. Nevertheless, the interval between the overs of Chaminda Vaas and Nuwan Kulasekara is interminably long. The batsmen are put off by the reflection of the sunlight off cars parked ill-advisedly near the sightscreen. Eventually the cars are removed, and everyone is happy.
Friday, August 1: The diary runs into Brendon Kuruppu — well not literally (since running into the amply built ICC pitch doctor Andy Atkinson, it has tread carefully in such matters). It sees the former Sri Lankan wicketkeeper-batsman at the lunch buffet, and strikes up a conversation. Kuruppu, who made an unbeaten 201 on debut against Hadlee and Chatfield in 1987, played just three other Tests, before retiring with an average of over 50. The 46-year-old has about him such an unassuming air, that it’s impossible to see him as Sri Lanka’s first double-century maker and for nearly four years the holder of the country’s highest Test score. He’s tall for a ’keeper, and has the hunched carriage affected by men who have spent the best part of their developing years crouched behind the sticks. His toothbrush moustache creases frequently, as he smiles and recalls his playing days. “Back then, you had one shot after a lengthy period of proving yourself in domestic cricket,” he says. “One shot, and then you were out. Fortunately, selection has changed these days, and players are given an extended run.” What does he remember of his double hundred on debut (still a record for a ’keeper), all 777 minutes of it? “I finally got my opportunity after spending four years with the one-day team, and I took it.” Kuruppu, in Galle covering the Test for radio, has managed the Sri Lankan national team, and currently coaches Tamil Union in Colombo. What next? “I’d probably like to do some stuff in the management side of things,” he says. “Media work is alright too, perhaps some writing, though I haven’t thought too much about it.”
Saturday, August 2: Cricketers from both sides observe silence, paying their respects to Ashok Mankad, who passed away yesterday. Tales of his crafty cricket brain do the rounds in the press box.
Sunday, August 3: Well, well, well, what have we here? The diary realises it has used this opening before, but what’s life without a touch of drudgery? Anyway, the reason the diary exclaims so is its witnessing of two independent sights that are about as strange these days as a hitchhiker flagging down an alien ship. First Russel Arnold roams the passageway that connects the media booths and the VIP enclosure; then Upul Chandana presents Virender Sehwag with the Man of the Match award. The BCCI mavens might have choked on their cornflakes, or whatever it is that people in high places eat, for these are ICL players — to be avoided, as P. G. Wodehouse memorably wrote in another context, as nimbly as a shark at a bathing resort. Having instructed their cricketers not to join English counties that have ICL players in their squad, it must have been some sight, watching Chandana and Sehwag together. Perhaps the diary exaggerates, for wasn’t it the kind board that organised a gala get-together in London for the 1983 World Cup-winning team led by Kapil Dev, also ICL chairman? These are tricky matters that find the diary out of its depth, to coin a phrase. So it will desist from artless commentary, lest the board revoke the accreditation and prevent it from covering another riveting one-day series (wink, hint, nudge).
Monday, August 4: The diary is off to commit a rare act of journalism. The team has won an important Test, and the mood in the camp needs recording. Well, noble intentions rarely achieve fruition. The diary is stopped at the gate of the hotel, named appropriately enough, Fortress. Apparently the instructions are to keep the media outside. Ouch. (Postscript: The diary does find a way in, thanks to several noble souls, but the visit, although rich in entertainment, is thin in material. You will forgive the diary for not providing details — non-disclosure clauses and all that.)
Tuesday, August 5: The trip from Galle to Colombo isn’t as pretty as it once was, according to seasoned travellers of this path; it continues however to be dotted by a hundred cricket matches. Not quite a hundred, but it seems so to the diary in the pangs of motion sickness of the worst kind. There’s everything: from three men, three sticks and a dog, to intense inter-college action, contested in whites on old-world grounds.
Wednesday, August 6: The diary spends a wonderful evening at the P. Saravanamuttu Stadium as an invitee of the Tamil Union Cricket and Athletic Club. It meets president Chandra Schaffter, a warm man with flowing snowy white hair and spectacular white eyebrows. He accompanied the Sri Lankan cricket team on its first international tour to India in 1982-83 — just one of several feathers in a large administrative cap. He speaks of the time the stadium was just a marsh. “It still is if you go beyond this place,” he says with an expansive swoop of his hand. “Then P. Saravanamuttu built it. Bradman came here twice, once in the 30s, then with the Invincibles in 1948. (Keith) Miller played that match, although I don’t recall (Ray) Lindwall playing it.” Schaffter speaks evocatively of Mahadevan Sathasivam. This cricket icon is known in India for the 215 he made in just over four hours at the M. A. Chidambaram Stadium, widely considered one of the finest seen in Chennai. Sir Garfield Sobers and Sir Frank Worrell recognised him as a fellow grandee, calling the October-born batsman the finest they had seen! Fortunately for the diary, its desire to see what the great man looked like is immediately satisfied. The club bar has a photo of Sathasivam with Bradman, the pair walking to the middle of P. Sara (as it’s called), for the toss. Bradman looks scholarly behind his black-rimmed glasses. Sathasivam, taller than Bradman, hair neatly parted, is frozen by the photographer in the act of making a point. “I played with him just as he was nearing the end of his career,” says Schaffter, “but he was still a special player, one of the best that ever lived, and not just here. Such a complete player, and what was the opposition he faced before playing international bowlers? Yet he never looked out of place; he was in such control. I remember him getting a 96 out of a total of about 150 on a sticky wicket, back then wickets were never covered, and this was against the Commonwealth side, an attack that had Henry Lambert, Fred Freer, the two Georges, Pope and Tribe, and Frank Worrell too.” Schaffter tells the diary that Tamil Union was conducting the Test free for the Sri Lankan Cricket Board. Why? “This was a ground built for Test cricket. Every important match before Test cricket started in Sri Lanka was played here. But we haven’t been getting many. This (hosting the second Test) is to justify our existence.”
Thursday, August 7: Arjuna Ranatunga and Sourav Ganguly, prickly former captains and left-handed batsmen both, confer during India’s pre-Test practice, sparking a blur of flash bulbs. What do they talk about? ‘Running between the wickets’ is the smart-money answer.
Friday, August 8: Lasith Malinga misses out on a central contract, and Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) is in focus again. The newspaper doing all this is the Daily Mirror, a paper affectionately known for “stirring the pot”, as one veteran journalist puts it.
Saturday, August 9: Even as the diary watches V. V. S. Laxman supported off the field after twisting his ankle, it is confronted by these dire words from a colleague: “If you value your life, don’t eat what they serve here. Do you know where they wash the dishes?” Fortunately, it’s all a big joke, and the diary eats a full lunch.
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