Deva Amunugama - 50 years in cricket administration

Hafiz Marikar

Veteran sports promoter Deva Amungama, a former Trinity College and Kandy District sportsmen celebrates his 50th year in Cricket administration. Deva is well known among the cricketing administrators, public and fans in the district as a major promoter for cricket in Kandy. He started his primary education at Mahamaya Girls College and from there he went to Seevali MV Ratnapura and St. Michael's College Batticaloa. With his fathers transfer to Kandy he joined Trinity College in 1954 as member of the Garret House with inspiration and motivation to all sportsman at school level and later to the district.

After leaving school he joined the Bank of Ceylon, and worked for 34 long years, mainly concentrating and promoting sports and in particular cricket, Table Tennis, Football and Carrom. While at the Bank of Ceylon he joined the Kandy Cricket Club in 1962 as a committee member and today he celebrates 50 years of service in the field of cricket. When he joined the club, some of the distinguish officials there were the late Shelton Ranaraja a great Thomian cricketer, Rohan Karunrthne, late M.E.Marikar a top class medium pacemen, Late Athur Alwis, late Z.M. Jahuffer to name a few. He was later the Manager of the Union Bank Kandy Branch.

He later was invited to serve and promote the Kandy District Cricket Association and with him, there were Shelton Ranaraja, Col. C. Bahar, E.W. Balasuriya, Dr. M.S. Uduwella, Z.M. Jahuffer, S. Vatharaja, all of them are no more. Later he was also associated in the committee with Aubrey Kuruppu, Malcolm Perera, Shaw Willson, D.H. de Silva, Roy de Silva and this writer to name a few.

He was a long standing vice president of the Association and was also one time vice president of the Kandy Public Services Club. Deva has served as an official in most of the international cricket matches before and after Test Status, mainly with the media.

He was a livewire to the Old Trintians Sports Club in which he is a founder member and served as committee member, cricket secretary, secretary, vice president and president, he was responsible for getting affiliated membership to the Sri Lanka Cricket Board during the time of late Gamini Dissanayake's presidency during that time they were the only Division III team who were entitled then and now with voting rights.

During the Sri Lanka Cricket presidency of Jayanatha Dharmadasa he was able to initiate major development at Old Trinitians Sports Club and was successful in obtaining the necessary funds to build an extension at the Old Trinitians Sports Club with a viewing of cricket matches from the upstairs.

He is also a member of the Old Boys Union of the Trinity for well over twenty years, and an active development member of the Trinity College Farm by initiating funds from Old Boys overseas. He is an ardent rugby fan, and never missed a Trinity College or Kandy Sports Club match and was one time treasurer of the Kandy Sports Club.

He has been a regular spectator and organizer of the Bradby Shield Encounter since 1960. Now he is a dual citizenship holder and resides in USA, at every Bradby shield match he is here and spends nearly six months thereafter with both friends and relations and in particular with the sports associations with his advice and participation.

When Late Gen. Anuruddha Ratwatte was the chairman of the Kandy District Sports Development Foundation, Dev too served in the Foundation. In this organization members such as former Sports Minister Gamini Lokuge, Former chairman Kandy District Sports Development Foundation General Anuruddha Ratwatte, DIG - CP Kingsley Ekanayake, District Secretary Gothabaya Jayaratne, SSP Jagath Abeyasirigunawardena, vice presidents of KDSDF Maurice Perera, Deva Amunugama, Upananda Jayasundera, Sunil Munasinghe and Lesley de Zoysa also served. This course of action certainly benefited the sportsmen and sportswomen of Kandy.

What Deva says is that Kandy needs a fully fledged Stadium to stage international and important sports events and also to help schools, clubs, sportsmen and sportswomen in the area. Apart from this, there are serious allegations that the charge for the hire of the grounds are high and varies from the facilities allowed to be used. When it was under the Kandy Municipal Council, the ground charge was not more than Rs. 1500.00. Every school and club were able pocket this and make sports important. Dev is keen in getting some funds from USA.

Deva Amunugama is a house hold name at OTSC where he took to the job like a duck to water and even burnt midnight oil spending all his time, at times spending his own money, seeing to it that Asgiriya would soon be a Test playing venue. He enlisted the help of Huthifa Halimdeen the veteran Trinity old boy, had the support of Dr. C.D.L. Fernando, M.E. Marikar and his nephew Hafiz, S.Uduwella, Z.M. Jaufer, Deva Amunugama, Harinda Dunuwille and Alex Lazarus.

Having to inhale the dust when the ground was dug up, saw Abu Fuard suddenly falling ill with one of his kidneys failing and his brother Ansar had to donate a kidney. Professor Rizvi Sheriff performed the surgery successfully and Fuard was back on his feet again. But not long afterwards he lost his eye-sight. This was sad. But his love for the game and its progress did not diminish. Deva also gave a big hand for football and he was responsible in forming the Saunders Football Club of Watapuluwa/Lewella. This team played in the Kandy District 'C' Division Tournament Some of his close friends are planning to felicitate Deva Amunugama before he leaves to USA in mid January 2013.