The THUPPAHI Item re the washed out international cricket match at the SSC grounds in Late 1958 drew this SET of EXCHANGES in July 2024
A= Skandakumar-Rasiah, 30 July 2024
Sharing a comment of a great follower of the game
Whose Idol was Peter May
B = Rasiah-Skanda, 30 July 2024
Oh yes-wonderful childhood memories
C = Rasiah — Skandakumar
Oh yes, I was there-Behind the bowlers end.
Richardson was fielding in front of us.
Cowdrey captained but I was thrilled to see my Peter May (my idol) walk out in tie at the time of the toss.
In the second over, Lafir square-cut Statham for four.
Anton S was booed to the wicket-poor guy.
He cover-drove Laker for four and next ball swept him for another four.
Then the sky opened and the players ran away.
We were fully drenched despite the poor Cadjan head covers.
D = Skandakumar -Rasiah
Anton stroked three successive boundaries I believe and the crowd that booed him then cheered him back to the pavilion when rain interfered.
E = Rasiah- Skanda
The story was that the TU charged the Board too much and hence the shift to SSC.
Following this saga, matches returned to the Oval for many years to come.
Ras
F = Michael Roberts, Responding to the LAST LINE
Thankfully – and praise be to the Kataragama Lord!
NOTE
https://www.espncricinfo.com/cricketers/peter-may-16956/photos
David Sheppard as pastor and Peter May as best man at Colin Cowdrey’s wedding
AFTERTHOUGHTS from Michael Roberts, 30 July 2024
After 1945, prior to this event all visiting teams had played their Colombo cricket matches at the Oval administered by the Tamil Union CC. This led me to speculate to yself that the shift to the SSC grounds may have possibly been prompted by the awful outbreak of ethnic violence against Tamils in mid-1958 (see below). But Rasiah interjects another possible reason in the exchange above (and he is not a Sinhalese person).
THE 1958 RIOTS in CEYLON
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_anti-Tamil_pogrom
A. Sivanandan, (July 1984). “Sri Lanka: racism and the politics of underdevelopment”. Race & Class. 26 (1): 1-37…… doi:10.1177/030639688402600102. ISSN 0306-3968. S2CID 143870163.
Neil DeVotta (2004). Blowback: Linguistic Nationalism, Institutional Decay, and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka. Stanford University Press. pp. 114–117. ISBN 978-0-8047-4924-4.
W. D. Soysa (4 September 2003). “1958 Riots in Polonnaruwa and Sinhala Muslim unity in Valachenai” (PDF).
Tarzie Vitachi: Emergency ’58: The Story of the Ceylon Race Riots. Andre Deutsch. 1958 OCLC 2054641.
A FURTHER NOTE OF SIGNIFICANCE, 1 August 2024
Directed by my interest in ethnicity and unaware of Anton Sethupathy’s background (unlike that of the other ten) I sought info on his background and ethnic identity. MICHAEL TISSERA’s response is significant: HIS EMAIL = “Dear Mike, I don’t know why the match was played at the SSC and not at the oval, but I did read somewhere that the Tamil Union charged too much.
Re Anton Sethupathy I am sorry I don’t know whether he was Tamil and cannot find out as those of the vintage are no more. Tried Skanda but he does not know either. In those days we did not even think about who was Sinhalese, Tamil, Burgher etc, all were Ceylonese.” …………… Cheers,
Michael
SO, we can all clap and say “Hurrah” . … while wishing that sentiment was widely prevalent. Sigh!