Australian cricketers first toured Sri Lanka in 1884

Hafiz Marikar

Sri Lanka cricketers who are well against the Kiwis in the home series are packing their bags to take off to Austraila for a Test, One-day and Twenty20 series and should do well. Sri Lanka and Australia have a good rapport, in the field of cricket.

Australa helped Sri Lanka in big way to gain Test status. Australia's maiden visit to Sri Lanka was in 1884 All cricket lovers are waiting to see our cricketers doing well in the Australia next month, and they will be celebrating the New Year in Australia. The Australian - Sri Lankan cricket connection has a long history. It is said that Lord Harris the former England cricket captain, speaking at a dinner in Surrey, in 1921 had asked the Australian team to please visit Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon), more often for cricket.

Since 1884 when the Australian first visited Sri Lanka, up to 1937 there had been eight stop over games by the Australians, two privately sponsored tours and one in 1914 by Rev. R.Waddy's team of New South Wales which had two test players.

The second by the Maharaja of Paaialas Australian team was in 1934. The 1914 team won the unofficial test after a hard fight and the 1935 match was won by the Australians. In 1938, the Australians toured Sri Lanka, under Sir Don Bradman. The tour match was played at the old SSC grounds.

All fans of that era were seen, at the match where Don Bradman was to be in action. Although his name appeared in the score sheet at No. 3 he did not play as he was indisposed and Stan MaCable led the Australians, and scored 367 for 9 in 210 minutes off 69 overs.

The opening pair put on 80 runs, which was between Jack Fingelton 49 and Bill Brown 53. Lindsay Hassett 116 and C. Badcock 116 put on 217 for the third wicket. With all this hammering off spinner George Perera had pocketed 5 for 108 runs, while Pat MaCarthy, George Herbert and L.D.S. Gunasekara all fielded well.

Then the last unofficial test between the two countries was in 1981, where the Australia were on their way to England. This unofficial test totals were lowest recorded in Sri Lankan by Australia in a three day game.

Australian scored 124 and 178 to Sri Lanka's 177. In that match Ajith Silva and Lalith Kaluperuma bowled best to take match bag of 9 for 100 and 8 for 109 respectively.

Sri Lanka had a god chance of winning, but was spoilt by rain. Sri Lanka needed 125 runs to win, but the bad weather prevented a decision.

Then came the inaugural Test in 1983/84, where Australians led by Greg Chappell beat Sri Lanka led by Bandula Warnapura by an innings and 38 runs. Australia scored 514 for 4 with Kepler Wessels 141 G. Yallop 96 David Hookes 143. Sri Lanka were dismissed for 271 runs in the first innings and 205 in the second, the match was over by lunch. Then in the limited over games of that series, out for the four games Sri Lanka won two and the other two were washed off.