Odayar would have given Sanath a good run

Sharm de Alwis

He was born in 1938, far too early for ODIs. If he were batting today he would give Sanath Jayasuriya a good run as a swashbuckling pulveriser of any type of bowling. His 63 for Trinity against the visiting South Australian schoolboy cricketers contained more sixes and fours than singles and although he never hit another half century in his school days several cameos had the signatured M.U. Odayar [affectionately called Odi] haymakers.

M.U. Odayar was the first ever recipient of the A.H.R. Joseph Challenge Trophy for the Best All-round Sportsman at Trinity. Other winners of this all important trophy whose names come to mind have been Nimal Maralanda, Jayantissa Ratwatte, Eric Roles, M.T.M. Zaruk, Mohan Sahayam, Glen Van Langenberg and Ajith Abeyaratne.

A scion of the legendary S.A. Odayar and, on the maternal stream, brothers O.L.M. Lebbe, O.L.Z. Abdeen and O.L. Izadeen who were awarded the Lion for rugger and for cricket, Odi excelled in hockey, cricket and rugger.

His captaincy of his Napier House in cricket and rugger was a foregone conclusion but the appointment of prefectship would, certainly, have been to curb his bravado which never knew any limits.

In cricket he was awarded the Fielding Prize as early as in 1955 when he was a slip of a boy and Colours also the same year along with Nimal Maralanda, Sene Ettipola and G. Koelmeyer. He was not lucky enough to have won his rugger Lion in 1956 but, then, so were Mike de Alwis and Sena de Sylva who thoroughly deserved the honour. His fellow Coursmen were Mike de Alwis, Ranjith de Alwis, Nimal Maralanda, Sena de Sylva, Sene Ettipola and Rodney Frank.

As a courageous custodian of the goal in hockey he was awarded Colours in 1956. Academics, of course, was never his forte nor did it interest him and yet he would not have bettered Mark Sundaralingam's 7 straight Fs in two sittings.

In the wider horizon of sports, Odi played for Kandy Sports Club straight from school and then went on to wear the jerseys of several Up-Country Clubs. 1959 saw him in his crowning glory when he was selected to play for the Ceylon Barbarians [the country's 2nd XV] against the visiting Oxford/Cambridge team and, on the strength of his fine performance, for All-Ceylon against the same protagonists.

The difficulties encountered by our countrymen to get into the All-Ceylon team will be exemplified with the listing of the team in which nine of the fifteen were ex-pats: Odi was the full-back with the rest of the team as Dharmasiri Madugalle, Lionel Almeida, Ken McPherson, R.S. Harrison, Nick Tait, Neville Leefe, Ranjith Sri Nissanka, John Boyd-Moss, D.R. Macrae, T.B. Pilapitiya, J.M.E. Waring, Chris Bean, Ashy Cader and W.B. Cameron.

Yesterday at the Taj Lanka, Odi celebrated his 70th birthday in a glittering gathering which included his fellow rugger mates, the brothers Sena and Raji de Sylva and a hundred others.