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Authors: Shehan Karunatilaka
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spinner?’
Mr Lucius pats down his parted white hair and rubs his pencil-thin mousto. I like this man; he is, like me, a gentle lover of cricket. Since 1996 the game has attracted a mass market of dabblers and dilettantes who are very vocal on the obvious points and not very knowledgeable on the finer ones. Sadly, some of them sit in the commentary box.
‘No. No. He. used to bowl pace. Actually he could bowl swing, off break and leg spin. Anything. Not medium pace, mind you, full dum pace. Like Waqar.’
He tells me that P. Sivanathan was one of seven Tamil boys in a school of 2,500 pupils. According to Lucky Sir’s astonishing memory, during the late 1970s there were seventeen Muslims, two Burghers and one Chinese at Thurstan College. These pupils were excused from Buddhist prayers and occasionally bullied on the playground.
‘He was about Grade 3. Crying away. Unfortunately, Thurstan gets some rough types. A bunch of them were throwing fruit at him, calling him Tamil kotiya. This is a good school, but things can happen.’
The bullies had been asking him if he was Tamil or Burgher. Pradeep’s reply had been, ‘Amma Sinhala.’ My mother is Sinhala.
‘He couldn’t even speak proper Tamil. I punished all the fellows. Told Sivanathan to get his parents to complain. They never did. Next time I saw him was at the U-11 trials. Mousey fellow. Took the ball and… my God.’
Lucky Sir drafted the boy into the U-13 squad. Pradeep could not catch, neither was he a natural athlete. But he was certainly a star.
‘He could imitate any action, no? After the boys saw him bowl, the bullying stopped.’
After Grade 5, as classes were shuffled to accommodate scholarship children, on Lucky Sir’s advice P. Sivanathan was enrolled as Pradeep Mathew in a parallel class.
‘We can’t change the world, no? I told him to stay out of trouble. To concentrate on hard work, doing the basics. Sometimes, fellow would listen.’
Pradeep began deflecting tormentors by imitating their bowling actions. He became the first to be picked during interval cricket, but remained the last to be invited to parties.
‘Sir Garfield Sobers came and coached our youngsters for a week. He said this boy will play for Sri Lanka.’
The mention of Sir Garfield reminds me of a son who bats like a girl and can barely bowl slow.
‘What a waste. If Pradeepan played our Big Match we would’ve won.’
The Thurstan–Isipathana Big Match has not had a result in twenty-three years.
‘Why didn’t he?’
When Pradeep failed his O-levels, his Sinhala mother and Tamil father visited the school for the first time.
‘Father was quiet. Mother said no way. No more cricket. He was sent for tuition, but I don’t think he went.’
‘What did he bowl? Left-arm spin or left-arm pace?’
Mr Lucius puts down his Portello and shakes his head. Our drinks are fresh from cool storage; they begin sweating on arrival.
‘You will not believe me, Mr Karunasena, you will think I am bowling you a googly. Ha. But when he was at Thurstan, he bowled right-arm.’
For the first time that day, I stop thinking about the half-bottle of Mendis rum stuffed in my almirah.
‘Ah?’
‘I know he played for All-Ceylon as a left-arm spinner, but for us he was a right-arm fast bowler. He was pretty quick and accurate, but not much stamina. Fellow gets tired, bowls spin. Right-arm leg spin and googlies. Gets hammered sometimes, but picks up wickets also.’
While it is possible to be competent with both hands in a given activity, ambidexterity works on the jack-of-all-trades, master-of-jack principle.
If you teach yourself to write left-handed your right-handed writing will deteriorate. If you practise both regularly, neither will attain excellence.
It may be possible to roll over the arm without being no-balled and hit a point on a pitch. But to hurl a cricket ball at speed or to spin it across its axis with either arm to a level sufficient to dismiss a Sri Lanka school
Mr Lucius pats down his parted white hair and rubs his pencil-thin mousto. I like this man; he is, like me, a gentle lover of cricket. Since 1996 the game has attracted a mass market of dabblers and dilettantes who are very vocal on the obvious points and not very knowledgeable on the finer ones. Sadly, some of them sit in the commentary box.
‘No. No. He. used to bowl pace. Actually he could bowl swing, off break and leg spin. Anything. Not medium pace, mind you, full dum pace. Like Waqar.’
He tells me that P. Sivanathan was one of seven Tamil boys in a school of 2,500 pupils. According to Lucky Sir’s astonishing memory, during the late 1970s there were seventeen Muslims, two Burghers and one Chinese at Thurstan College. These pupils were excused from Buddhist prayers and occasionally bullied on the playground.
‘He was about Grade 3. Crying away. Unfortunately, Thurstan gets some rough types. A bunch of them were throwing fruit at him, calling him Tamil kotiya. This is a good school, but things can happen.’
The bullies had been asking him if he was Tamil or Burgher. Pradeep’s reply had been, ‘Amma Sinhala.’ My mother is Sinhala.
‘He couldn’t even speak proper Tamil. I punished all the fellows. Told Sivanathan to get his parents to complain. They never did. Next time I saw him was at the U-11 trials. Mousey fellow. Took the ball and… my God.’
Lucky Sir drafted the boy into the U-13 squad. Pradeep could not catch, neither was he a natural athlete. But he was certainly a star.
‘He could imitate any action, no? After the boys saw him bowl, the bullying stopped.’
After Grade 5, as classes were shuffled to accommodate scholarship children, on Lucky Sir’s advice P. Sivanathan was enrolled as Pradeep Mathew in a parallel class.
‘We can’t change the world, no? I told him to stay out of trouble. To concentrate on hard work, doing the basics. Sometimes, fellow would listen.’
Pradeep began deflecting tormentors by imitating their bowling actions. He became the first to be picked during interval cricket, but remained the last to be invited to parties.
‘Sir Garfield Sobers came and coached our youngsters for a week. He said this boy will play for Sri Lanka.’
The mention of Sir Garfield reminds me of a son who bats like a girl and can barely bowl slow.
‘What a waste. If Pradeepan played our Big Match we would’ve won.’
The Thurstan–Isipathana Big Match has not had a result in twenty-three years.
‘Why didn’t he?’
When Pradeep failed his O-levels, his Sinhala mother and Tamil father visited the school for the first time.
‘Father was quiet. Mother said no way. No more cricket. He was sent for tuition, but I don’t think he went.’
‘What did he bowl? Left-arm spin or left-arm pace?’
Mr Lucius puts down his Portello and shakes his head. Our drinks are fresh from cool storage; they begin sweating on arrival.
‘You will not believe me, Mr Karunasena, you will think I am bowling you a googly. Ha. But when he was at Thurstan, he bowled right-arm.’
For the first time that day, I stop thinking about the half-bottle of Mendis rum stuffed in my almirah.
‘Ah?’
‘I know he played for All-Ceylon as a left-arm spinner, but for us he was a right-arm fast bowler. He was pretty quick and accurate, but not much stamina. Fellow gets tired, bowls spin. Right-arm leg spin and googlies. Gets hammered sometimes, but picks up wickets also.’
While it is possible to be competent with both hands in a given activity, ambidexterity works on the jack-of-all-trades, master-of-jack principle.
If you teach yourself to write left-handed your right-handed writing will deteriorate. If you practise both regularly, neither will attain excellence.
It may be possible to roll over the arm without being no-balled and hit a point on a pitch. But to hurl a cricket ball at speed or to spin it across its axis with either arm to a level sufficient to dismiss a Sri Lanka school
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