Michael Roberts
THE SRI LANKAN PERSONNEL in the PHOTOGRAPH …. identified with aid from Mevan Pieris, Lam Seneviratne & Prakash Schaffter... with a few of the Australians identified in blue.
STANDING L-to-R: ………..16=Ravi Ratnayake; 17=Vinodhan John; 18=Rumesh Ratnayake; 19=Asantha De Mel; 20= Guy De Alwis; 21= DS De Silva; 22=Marlon Von Hagt; 23=Sunil Fernando; 24=Sidath Wettimuny; 25=Ranjan Madugalle; 26=Roshan Gunaratne or Anura Ranasinghe; 27= Arjuna Ranatunga;….. with Don Thomas (masseur) standing in front of him; 28= CEB Anthony or WAN de Silva; 29=HC Felsinger/or WAN Silva.
SEATED L-to-R: 1–Roy Dias; 2-Nuski Mohammed; 4-Chulaka De Zoysa; 5-Jayantha Paranathala; 6-Duleep Mendis; 7-Basil Rigg–The Manager of the Australian Team; 8-Gamini Dissanayake; 9-David Rutter–High Commissioner for Australia; 10-Greg Chappell; 11-Gamini Kannangara; 12-Chulaka De Zoysa; 13- Garry Sobers; 14-??; !5-??; 16-David Hookes.
A NOTE from Mevan Pieris: “I knew Chulaka de Zoysa very well and it was Chulaka de Zoysa who provided the gold coin that was used to toss in the first ever official test match. Both Chulaka and Gamini Kannangara were very close friends of Gamini Dissanaike.”
Reflections & Commentary
Gamini Dissanayake was an instrumental force in securing ICC status for Sri Lanka within a political environment in the MCC world that was hostile.[1] As a central force in the island’s cricket circles, he followed previous practice in staging international matches at Asgiriya, the grounds of his old school Trinity College – even though the circumference of the site was relatively confined.[2]
When the Australian squad on its way to England toured the island in 1983, therefore, the First Test Match was played at Asgiriya and commenced on the 2 April 1983. The photograph taken on that occasion featured several Sri Lankan ‘supernumeraries’ as well as the teams and their coaches. This act of supernumerary encompassment, too, was, unusual …. and remains relatively unique as far as I know.
Gamini Dissanayake is the central figure seated in the front row with Basil Riggs (Manager of the Australian team) to his right and David Rutter, the High Commissioner for Australia in Sri Lanka, on his left. Rutter was good enough to donate this photograph to me way back in time.
It is a unique picture for several reasons. For one it includes Garfield Sobers the coach of the Sri Lankan side seated 4th from the right. The entry of Sobers as the Sri Lankan coach had been a remarkable coup engineered by Dissanayake courtesy of two factors: (A) the intervention of a West Indian aficionado from the cricketing world whom Gamini had befriended during their stint together at Cambridge University;[3] and (B) Gary Sobers admiration and friendship with Mahadeva Sathasivam – courtesy of older generations of West Indian cricketers who had been charmed by Sathasivam’s batting brilliance and personality – witness this photo from the early 1960s as one demonstration of this link:
https://i0.wp.com/quadrangle.lk/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Satha-with-Sobers.jpg?ssl=1).
Rudi Webster, the Barbadian cricketer and subsequent psychology-guide for sporting teams, who Gamini may have befriended at Cambridge University
Secondly, it is very unusual for such photographs at the commencement of Test Matches to include a range of aides and supernumeraries (see list below). Third: the Asgiriya grounds were eventually displaced as a Test venue by the construction of a larger oval at Pallekelle to the north-east of Kandy town in the year 2009.[4]
For the ‘incidental’ (ha, ha) historical record it may be mentioned that Australia batted first and amassed 514 runs for the loss of 4 wickets — with Kepler Wessels scoring 141, Graham Yallop 98 and Hookes 143 n.o. — in quick time the latter. Then, Sri Lanka was bowled out twice for 271 and 205 (with Duleep Mendis and Arjuna Ranatunge scoring 74 & 90 respectively in the first innings and Sidath Wettimuny 96 in the second).
However, perhaps the saddest feature of this picture is the fact that the lifespan of two personnel[5] was abruptly cut short by two alarming strikes. David Hookes of South Australia (seated here on extreme right) went on to coach Victoria, but was felled and killed by a bouncer after a confrontation at a pub in Melbourne on the 19th January 2004.[6] By then, Gamini Dissanayake had already had his vibrant life shattered by a Tamil Tiger suicide bomber on the 24th October 1994.[7] Dissanayake’s political career had been somewhat turbulent up to that point; but the assassination of both R. Premadasa and Lalith Athulathmudali in the 1990s had opened the door for him to challenge Chandrika Kumaratunga of the SLFP in the race for the Sri Lankan Presidency in 1994. He was on the platform on the UNP ticket addressing a public campaign meeting at the port of Colombo on 24th October 1994 when the female Tigress (in plain clothes) attacked the cluster as a suicide bomber and killed Dissanayake and about 50 others.[8]
A SPECIAL Doffing of Our Caps…. FOR David Hookes at Adelaide Oval, 2004 …. https://www.theage.com.au/national/thousands-gather-to-farewell-hookes-20040127-gdx6yf.html
END NOTES
1 = Sri Lanka’s valiant political efforts (with aid from British friends & support from India and Pakistan) in the 1970s were thwarted by the ICC conservatives. Alas, Jeff Stollmeyer, representing the Windies, was also hostile.
2 = As a teacher at Peradeniya University in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I recall watching several international matches at this ground. A brilliant catch at gully by Hema de Silva and a huge six over mid-on by Sugi Rajaratnam are among the mental pictures that remain.
3 = My fading and deficient memory suggests that this person may have been Rudi Webster, a Barbadian cricketer who went on to earn a doctorate in psychology and then mentored many cricketing teams including his West Indians. See https://collection.australiansportsmuseum.org.au/objects/41473/photograph-of-dr-rudi-webster-sir-garfield-sobers
4 = See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallekele_International_Cricket_Stadium
5 = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamini_Dissanayake
6 = See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hookes and …. https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/how-good-was-david-hookes-137663
7 = See https://www.upi.com/Archives/1995/02/01/Police-say-woman-killed-Sri-Lankan/5751791614800/ …. AND ….. https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/25/world/latest-killing-of-a-sri-lanka-politician-fits-a-familiar-pattern.html
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Michael, as a fan of Gary Sobers during my school days, I always enjoy your re-telling of any Sobers-related story. But, NOW, I’m somewhat keen on finding out, how did ‘dutu’ (for Tamils) Gamini entice Sobers to land in Colombo. You provide only two factors: (1) intervention of a West Indian aficionado, whom you identify as Rudy Webster; (2) admiration of Sobers for M. Sathasivam, the cricketer. I guess the second factor was simply a ‘politically correct’ dish served to the Colombo press
Come On – Sobers couldn’t have landed in Colombo, simply for peanuts and a bottle of ‘Mendis Special’? Lets get some details on financial coordinates? Did you find out out, how much moolah was paid to Sobers by the SL cricket board for his short coaching stint? Also, did Gamini or his designated agent got a 10% service fee for arranging Sobers? Was it certified by the then political boss of Gamini – Dicky Jayawardene?
Dear Friends incl Thuppahiyo
SACHI SRI KANTHA is a Sri Lankan Tamil domiciled in Japan who has inserted comments with some regularity in TPS. He has been consistent in displaying his Tamilness as well as his caustic reading of the world. THIS SET of COMMENTS is no different.
A = Re Sobers’ admiration for Sathasivam, Sachi’s caustic speculation reveals his jaundiced mind. For One: it underestimates the renown which Sathasivam had gathered for himself in the cricketing world because of his batting skills. This master-craftsmanship (A1) had been witnessed by the West Indian team that toured Ceylon in the late 1940s and (A2) would have been confirmed and passed on by Learie Constantine when he coached Ceylon circa 1953. Besides anyone glancing at the photo of young juvenile Sobers greeting an aging Satha would perceive uninhibited admiration of young man to venerable senior in the exchange.
B = As for the financial terms offered to Sobers to entice him to accept a coaching role: I have no idea and no facile path to ascertain the details now some 40 years later. Nor have I any access to Sober’s history after he retired. As pure conjectures I suggest that the factors that induced Sobers to take up this challenge once Rudi Webster mediated the proposal from Dissanayake were (B1) his experiences and enjoyment of life in Colombo when he toured with the Windies in early 1967 (and notched 115 runs in a Windies total of 549) — with casinos, golf and women providing the éxtras’ on this trip. (B2) the challenge and prospect of beating his prime cricketing enemy, viz Australia, once again.
IN FURTHER RESPONSE = in pursuing the issues here I discovered an item in my files that resolves one issue (while indicating the holes in my memory bank):
“This old black-and-white photo depicts a training session of the Sri Lanka cricket team in 1982. Sir Garfield Sobers, the ultimate legend from Barbados who celebrated his 85th birthday on 28 July, is the Coach. The late Gamini Dissanayake brought down Sir Gary, world’s greatest all-rounder, to coach the budding Test cricket team, with the cost of that bright initiative being borne by Rajendran Rajamahendra, Chairman of the Maharaja Group, who passed away last month.”
https://www.islandcricket.lk/photos/when-sir-garfield-sobers-coached-sri-lanka-in-1982/
Rajendran Rajamahendra,
Thanks a lot Michael, for your kind introduction about my identity to fellow readers of your blog. Whatever you write about me, I appreciate, because you are a scholar I do admire for your work. One reason I participate actively is that, yours is one of the few websites I read avidly for news about Sri Lanka, since I left the blessed island in 1981!
I’m not nit-picking. But, I wanted some specific facts in figures, which anyone can comprehend easily. You state that the Chairman of Maharaja Group coughed up the costs of bringing Sobers to Sri Lanka. Well, if Maharajas is a publicly traded company, there should be some accounting for this in ‘some sort of papers’. I wanted that specific information. That’s all. I wished to spotlight this ‘grey zone of cricket management’ by the power hungry politicos – legit or masked variety.
Also, I did watch Sobers scoring 115 in that match at Colombo Oval (Jan 21-23, 1967), as a 13 year old school boy, at the far end of Spectator stand. Season ticket for 3 days was priced at 5 rupees.
Also, will you give me a date, when and where this Sathasivam-Sobers photo was taken.
A= I discovered the detail indicating Raja Mahendran’s financing of Sober’s employment purely by chance in one of my [forgotten] files. Further details I do not know and have no inclination to search for [far too busy ].
B = As for the meeting between SOBERS & SATHA it is an undated photo on my files. Sobers looks very youthful and Satha oldish so it my GUESS that I was in the early 1960s. note ….my GUESS. If it is your desire to ascertain a date, you sd approach some SL newspapermen and/or cricketers from that period.
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I have some pleasant memories of the young lawyer, Gamini Dissanayake , in the mid to late 1960s, prior to his entry into politics. I was then the Chief Accountant of Bartleet & Co. Ltd, firm of stock and produce brokers. A few of our clients defaulted, leaving large debts. Our main lawyer then was B J. Fernando and his able assistant, Gamini Dissanayake was assigned to appear for Bartleet& Co. Ltd in the litigation matters. I had the responsibility of submitting a brief for our Lawyers and I recall accompanying Gamini to the Civil Courts in Ratnapura and Galle in our hired vehicle. Apart from being a competent lawyer Gamini was an interesting conversationalist. I enjoyed his company on our business trips.
J
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