Venkat B Krishna in The Indian Express,24 May 2023…. where the title reads “How CSK’s Tamil fans fell in love with two Sinhalese players Pathirana and Theekshana””
Things have changed after years of strained relationship when CSK were forced not to play Sri Lankan players at home, and a famous actor had to pull out of a Muralitharan biopic.
There is something special brewing in Chennai this season apart from their obsession with MS Dhoni. Two Sri Lankan cricketers – Matheesha Pathirana and Maheesh Theekshana – have become the fans favourite at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, where not so long ago players from the Island nation couldn’t take the field because political tensions in the aftermath of the Eelam war that ended in 2009.
Estelle Barbara Roberts was born as the second child from the second bed of Thomas Webb Roberts (1881-1978) on the 2nd May 1930. She was brought up within the Fort of Galle and received her education at Southlands, Sacred Heart Convent and Richmond Colleges; but was then swept off her feet by an earnest young government servant, Charles Hubert Fernando, who played tennis at the Galle Gymkhana Club (where TW was a kind of institution and a regular).
Lasith Malinga, now a bowling consultant with Rajasthan Royals, has been watching Chennai Super Kings’ games with particular interest. Matheesha Pathirana, CSK’s death-overs specialist, not only bowls with the same, unusual round-arm action with which Malinga dominated the IPL for many years, but is also in a sense a protege. Over the last three years, Malinga has worked sporadically with Pathirana in Sri Lanka’s high performance centre, and has advised him on what he needs to do to build a career.
1. Russia has started deploying nuclear weapons to Belarus to counter the build up of weapons and forces in central and Western Europe targetting Russia.
A pro-Russian cartoon of the failed Ukrainian terrorist attack in Belgorod
2. Belarusian President Lukashenko says that “forces” supported by Poland to topple his government and carry out a coup in Belarus will not succeed in part because Belarus knows every individual involved in the plot and are monitoring their activities, and partly because Russia will intervene should any coup like activities even remotely start to occur. Russia already has 50,000 troops in Belarus. It is another sign of desperation by the West.
An Item from Wikipedia sent by David Sansoni of Sydney
“Historia de un Amor” (Spanish for “the story of a love”) is a song about a man’s old love written by Panamanian songwriter Carlos Eleta Almarán. It was written after the death of his brother’s wife. It is also part of the soundtrack of a 1956 Mexican film of the same name starring Libertad Lamarque. The song tells of a man’s suffering after his love has disappeared. It holds the world record as the most popular song to be translated and sung across the world in various languages by various singers from the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa.
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO – MARCH 25: Mexican singer Guadalupe Pineda speaks during a press conference to present her new album at the offices of Sony Music on March 25, 2010 in Mexico City, Mexico…. Photo by Hugo Avila/Jam Media/LatinContent via Getty Images
This lively presentation was sent to me as a venture of “Batticaloa Burghers singing in three languages”. But digital commentary indicates that the words are (mostly?) Konkani … and raises questions as to where exactly this lively collective was located when they sang. SEE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=munAPKRQ0nk So, that means we are definitely in Thuppahi territory! Ole! Ole! Hai Hoyi! ………. Thuppahi.
Alagappan Muthu,23 May 2023, with this title“CSK squeeze the Titans to enter their tenth IPL final”
Chennai Super Kings 172 for 7 (Gaikwad 60, Conway 40, Shami 2-28) beat Gujarat Titans (Gill 42, Jadeja 2-18) by 15 runs
MS Dhoni has led Chennai Super Kings to their tenth IPL final. He’s had the whole country wrapped around his fingertips without even trying, and nights like these are the reason why. Even the umpires couldn’t win against him.
He met Gujarat Titans on a pitch that he likes – the kind that used to greet international teams during his reign as India captain – and turned their comfort zone into anything but. A team that likes batting second lost for only the fourth time in 18 chases.
Deepak Chahar had Shubman Gill caught on the long-leg boundary for 42• Getty Images
Rex Clementine, in The Island, 24 May 2023, where the title reads: “Matheesha: Cricket’s Latest Sensation” ….…. with highlighting imposed by The Editor, Thuppahi
We’ve heard it from cricket’s supremo M.S. Dhoni that young fast bowling sensation Matheesha Pathirana should get nowhere near red ball cricket. There would have been quite a furore had Kumar Sangakkara or Mahela Jayawardene said it. Remember the reaction when they echoed similar sentiments in the case of Lasith Malinga all those years ago. But with talents like Matheesha and Malinga it seems a sensible move. After all, Sanga and MJ rarely get their facts wrong.
Robert Siddharthan Perinpanayagam, in Groundviews, 22 August 2011, where the title reads “Caste And Politics” …. An article that drew 19 comments including some responses from “Sid”… reproduced here with highlighting imposed by The Editor in circumstances where my friend “Sid” from Peradeniya days is no longer around to dispute matters … as he surely would have.
Over the years, the claims of the Tamil people for justice, equalty and dignity have been rejected with a variety of specious arguments. It is not necessary to go into these exercises here again. However, the latest attempt in this direction is to raise the issue of caste in Jaffna society. Former civil servants, who spent three or four years being de facto kings of the North, have sought to comment on this issue in many recent hero-stories that they have published in the newspapers. In these hero-stories they report not only how they defeated one departmental head or another or humiliated a hapless village headman, but how they vanquished the evil designs of the Tamils as well. Indeed everything seems to become grist to the mill of Tamil-bashing. Even a casual remark made in a cricket match is used by a famous historian to claim that the Tamils of Jaffna are cravenly caste-conscious. Off-the-cuff social commentators as well as the tribalist pundits in the newspapers have also got into this act. The implication of these commentaries is that the Sinhalese do not have the problem of castism and only Tamils do. One recent commentator is so ignorant of the political history of the island as to invoke Ponnambalam Ramanathan’s castism! It was indeed the fear of Karava ascendancy by the Goigamas that elevated Ramanathan to high stature by making him the representative of the “Educated Ceylonese” in the Legislative Council.
