Cricket Cup history Reviewed by Film Idol Tony

Lenard Ranjith Mahaarachchi

Sri Lanka, is right now in frenzy with the Leap Year Cricket extravaganza. To placate to the sports fans in general and cricket crazy men and women in particular, veteran film and tele star Tony Ranasinghe has ventured into the field of editing a book on cricket.

A sports lover since his school days, Tony is presenting to the Sinhala reader who has no easy access to the high tech internet, and browse through cricket’s past, has compiled all the cricket records covering the ten editions of cricket’s show pieces The World Cup.

Tony never got into the stage in school or has played in the team let alone earn a name as a studious student, which goes to show that in every child there is talent or a special kind, that comes in one’s prime. Today he is a director, script writer and finally an author of repute.

Browsing through his cricket edition, one has all the past records in detail of all the matches played from 1975, including score cards, bowling and batting details and even mention of man of the match et al. The book is like a mirror before you with all stats, and some past games come alive as you read through.

“Loka Cricket Kusalana Puranaya” is the title of the rendition in perfect Sinhala as Tony is one of the member of the Hela Havula who are sticklers for perfect style of writing in the mother tongue.

For his book, he has received support from some local cricket greats like D S de Silva, Anura Tennekone, Dulip Mendis, Sanath Jayasuriya, Mahela and current skipper Sangakkara who have all blessed the author. He had taken lot of pains to trace all the past records and details of statistics which otherwise would be history.

But for the sake of posterity Tony’s endeavour has to be praised and coming school boy generations will be indebted to film star cum director Tony Ranasinghe who has published in Sinhala for the averages of cricket fan, a book of this dimension which will be a relic of the past of the Englishman’s game, which Bernard Show euphemistically called the “Game of Flannelled Fools” in his day.

With apologies to him, one can say that cricketers are no fools today, but the new generation of get rich quick millionaries and those who are interested in the Queen’s game which is currently the sport of kings, are no fools either. Cricket lovers will be thankful to Tony, for editing a book on World Cup edition one to nine, which makes simple reading for the Sinhala reader.