Michael Roberts
I have never met Christopher Martin-Jenkins in person but count him as a friend and a man of wide breadth whose early death from cancer is a loss to mankind as well as the cricket world. This intervention may seem surprising but cricket in Sri Lanka produces many surprises. One such emerged from a media event sponsored by the Laureus Foundation to advertise their efforts in sponsoring cricket and sport in the northern reaches of Sri Lanka through the avenues being forged by Kushil Gunasekara and his Foundation of Goodness. This event at the Taj Samudra Hotel one Sunday during the World Cup featured a Laureus representative, Ian Botham, Michael Vaughan, Muttiah Muralitharan, Kumar Sangakkara and Martin-Jenkins. CMJ was there in his capacity as the President of MCC. The MCC, I stress, had already invested heavily in sponsoring FOG’s good works in the Seenigama locality in southwest Lanka.
I attended the function as an observer, but never got to speak to CMJ. However, I highlighted the FOG work on my web sites (and have loads more photographs than those displayed because I have always maintained close touch with Anura, Fazana, Kushil and company). However, it was Botham’s emphasis on the “devastation” he had a observed during a helicopter ride to Mankulam in the north that grabbed newspaper headlines. Continue reading
