Of big matches, camaraderie and playing with a straight bat
This
Cricket World Cup has more than compensated for the drag-farce that was
the 2007 edition of the event. The great thing about one-day matches is
that rain permitting there’s always a result. Someone wins, someone
loses and when there are no winners, ie in the event of a tie, the
anticipation, breathlessness, agony and heroics are as or more exciting
than those generated by wins, even those that are decided in the last
over. Now I am not anti-Test. Tests are different.
They call for a vastly different approach and temperament and
although they do drag (I prefer rugby, by the way), they have their
moments and magic, things to savour and do generate heartaches and
mindless celebrations from time to time. Frequently enough not to
abolish the format, I might add. Still, the shorter versions (ODIs and
T-20s) are arguably more exciting and generating of spectator interest.
Cricket is not just matches between two countries. There are a lot of
versions between Tests and the odd games that are fiercely contested in
countless neighbourhoods with rules of their own, field and stroke
restrictions etc. In between there are what are called ‘big matches’,
annual encounters between two schools which generate as much or more
spectator interest as a World Cup final.
Man of the Match Ramith Rambukwella in action at the Royal
Thomian match held in SSC grounds on March 10. Picture by Roshan
Pitipana |
Schoolboy experience
Some people bemoan the fact that most big matches end in draws and
sometimes dead boring ones to boot. The assumption however is that
‘action’ is what happens on the field. The truth, however, is that while
people would love their school to do well and notch a win or two every
decade or so, most spectators are not emotionally invested in the run of
play or the outcome. What happens outside the boundary line is what
matters and it is for this that old boys attend big matches, some
travelling from the other end of the earth just to relive the schoolboy
experience, meet old friends and teachers, reminisce and so on. This is
why I attend the Royal-Thomian.
I am not blind to school colours or what scoreboard story but hardly
ever turn my eyes to the cricket, except when there’s a surge in the
cheering indicating wicket, boundary or a batsman reaching 50 or 100. I
can generally tell what the cheering was about by a quick survey of
flags. If it is mostly black and blue then it’s something the Thomians
can cheer about and if it is blue and gold it’s a Royal moment. It is
almost always after-the-fact and I have found myself instinctively
waiting for replay that will not come. I am a creature of the idiot-box,
I humbly acknowledge.
Thomian prefects
On the third and last day of play, as I was doing my usual rounds
from tent to tent, I ran into my old friend and former boss, Krishantha
Cooray. It was late in the day and both of us were in high spirits.
‘Write about the camaraderie,’ he requested.
He related a story. Some Thomian prefects had been passing the Seylan
Bank tent, waving flags and cheering their school. For some reason this
had irked some young old Royalists who had started pelting these
Thomians with whatever they could lay their hands on. It was ugly. An
older Old Royalist had stood up and urged his younger schoolmates to
desist. He had been quite vocal and very insistent. Sanity was restored
and everyone reverted to whatever it was they were doing before this
silly incident took place.
‘There is camaraderie, Malinda,’ Krishantha explained, cautioning,
‘but it’s the older generation that understands this.’
Krishantha is a Thomian. He’s not my only Thomian friend though.
Every year I go to ‘The Stables’ which is an enclosure that is open to
anyone although organized by the Thomian Group of ‘79. I meet Royalists
there, but I go there specifically to meet up with a bunch of Thomians
including Harinlal Aturupane and Sidath Samarakkody (he was missing this
year). There’s something in what Krishantha says. There is school
loyalty but this is secondary to inhabiting and absorbing of the overall
spectacle that is the Royal Thomian. There is the occasional fraying of
tempers, the wrong word being said at the wrong place and time,
drink-fuelled overreaction and such, but things are sorted out very
quickly for the most part. Speaking strictly for myself, I am all for
draws. ‘Dead-boring’ is great in my book and ‘Rained-out’ truly magical.
I don’t want anyone to be unhappy. I believe that others would define
‘camaraderie’ in different ways, but I am sure few would disagree with
Krishantha.
Village-level societies
I wondered however about the incident, though. Was it about
camaraderie? Was it a Royal-Thomian thing? Made me remember a story
about an incident that took place at Kelaniya University (then
Vidyalankara). Some boys from Vidyodaya (now Sri Jayawardenapura
University) had come for a volleyball match along with some supporters.
Some words were spoken, someone was irked, someone cast the first stone,
someone else reacted with a stone-casting of his own and soon there was
a fully-fledged battle going on.
A student leader from Vidyalankara had noticed one boy from the
opposite camp turning his back to the missiles directed towards his
friends, urging his friends to stop it. He had realized that if this boy
had been hit, things would have got totally out of control. He himself
had turned around, ignoring the missiles that came his way and urged his
friends to stop. Sanity was restored. Camaraderie may have been a factor
in the Seylan Tent incident, but there must have been something more
too.
The boy who stood up to his mates later pioneered the revitalization
of thrift and credit cooperative societies in the island and built a
movement that has earned the accolades of the entire international
cooperative movement. He was awarded an honorary doctorate and conferred
the enviable national honour of Vishva Prasadhini (Universally
Acclaimed). His name is known across the length and breadth of this
nation. He is leader to a movement that consists of over 8,000
village-level societies and close to a million members, has spawned a
number of national-level commercial and cooperative outfits. He ‘did’
microfinance long before corporate financial entities discovered the
term and concept and moved into tap hitherto ignored market segments,
and yet senior government officials lament that there’s no Sri Lankan
version of the Grameen idea.
Scoreboard
The other boy, who related the incident, once defied a vote-and-die
edict issued by the JVP, cast his vote the moment the polls opened and
went around showing his inked-finger to all saying ‘They said they’ll
kill the first to vote; I was the first, now you go ahead and exercise
your franchise’. He was shot at and escaped by throwing at his
assailants a bottle of milk he had grabbed from an old woman nearby. He
is the author of several books on a wide range of issues. He lives
frugally and observes all precepts pertaining to the idea of Anagarika.
It is not a Royal thing or a Thomian thing. It is still cricket and
refers to camaraderie with the larger collective and commitment to
things good and wholesome. These individuals subjected themselves to the
greater Tests, played ODIs on a day-to-day basis, were equally adept at
playing the necessary cameo in life’s T-20s, i.e. the bigger ‘Big
Matches’. I am not watching the scoreboard and didn’t see what happened,
but these out-of-ground strokeplay is all that matters. Krishantha would
agree, I am sure.
[email protected] |