Michael Roberts
The recent entry in THUPPAHI on Lindsay Hassett has underlined certain strands within the history of Sri Lanka in the 1930s to 1950 through the background scenery displayed by the photographs deployed therein.
Category Archives: Sri Lankan cricket
Reflections on Arjuna’s Review of the 1996 World Cup Triumph
Michael Roberts, courtesy of Colombo Telegraph …. https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/reflections-on-arjunas-review-of-the-1996-world-cup-triumph/
Arjuna Ranatunga’s timely recollections and assessments of Sri Lanka’s cricketing triumph at the Final of the 1996 World Cup at Lahore on March 1996 add up to a master class – balanced, wide-ranging, revelatory and judicious within the space limits of a news-item.
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Arjuna Ranatunga’s Wide-ranging Review of the World Cup Win in March 1996
Arjuna Ranatunga, in The Island, 7 March 2021, where the title runs thus: “Our fans were our biggest strength,” ….. with the highlights being the intervention of The Editor, Thuppahi
During one of my visits to South Africa, I came across an interesting saying — ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together.’
This sentence is so true. As we celebrate the Silver Jubilee of us winning the World Cup, we owe the success to our wonderful team spirit. I treat each of the other 13 members of the World Cup-winning squad not as teammates, but as brothers. They mean so much to me. And I know they will do anything for me. This was the secret of our success.
Sacking Chaminda Vaas. Terrible Course!
Sanjeewa Jayaweera, in The Sunday Island, 7 March 2021, where the title reads thus: “Chaminda Vass was an All-time Hero for Sri Lanka” …. with highlighting added by The Editor, Thuppahi
Fast bowling is an arduous task and is doubly so in the Asian subcontinent, where docile pitches and energy-sapping heat takes their toll on those brave enough to take up the challenge. One must have a big heart, a great deal of determination and lots of skill to succeed as a fast bowler. Chaminda Vaas (CV) had plenty of these and a few more.
The LANKA COURIER takes off …
Sri Lanka’s Neutral Foreign Policy
LANKA COURIER FEB 08, 2021
The following article has been adapted from the address by the President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in the general debate of the 75th Session of the United…
Features ….. Foreign Relations of Sri Lanka
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Trauma and Joy in Cricket …. and Abusive Lankan Aussies
Ajit Jayasekera — Email Memo to Michael Roberts, 15 February 2021
When we went to Australia for the Tri Nations tournament with England and Australia in December 2002/January 2003, the team was captained by Sanath Jayasuriya and the Coach was Dav Whatmore. We were after a rather disastrous tour of South Africa, where we were roundly beaten in both formats of the game and started this tournament in similar disastrous manner getting smashed by both England and Australia in the opening games.
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George Steuarts for Sri Lanka in Mid-March 1996: Moving Heaven and Earth
S. Skandakumar
The semi final was over around ten pm at Eden Garden in Calcutta. Unruly crowd behaviour when all was lost for India ended in the Match Referee Clive Lloyd awarding the game to Sri Lanka on that Tuesday night, the 14 th of March.1996. I managed to get through to Cricket Board ‘s President Ana Punchihewa in the players dressing room, to convey congratulations and retired to bed truly happy !
We had qualified to play Australia in the Wills World Cup final, at Lahore on Friday 17 th. Just after midnight I had a knock on the door. Bernard Wijetunge and Channa Wijemanne, two of the Directors of our Travel subsidiary had woken me up for a reason. “Boss we must do a charter for the Final.”
CALCUTTA, INDIA – MARCH 13: Sri Lanka captain and batsman Arjuna Ranatunga picks up some runs during his innings of 35 runs during the 1996 ICC Cricket World Cup semi final against India at Eden Gardens, Kolkata on March 13, 1996. (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Allsport/Getty Images)
Filed under cricket for amity, cultural transmission, economic processes, historical interpretation, life stories, patriotism, performance, pilgrimages, politIcal discourse, self-reflexivity, Sri Lankan cricket, sri lankan society, transport and communications, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes
Joe Hoad’s Paintings in Celebration of Sri Lanka’s World Cup Triumph 1996
Michael Roberts
One day in 1996 our doorbell rang at Woodlark Grove in the suburb of Glenalta in Adelaide . …. And there was Joe Hoad with two paintings he had composed in celebration of Sri Lanka’s triumph at the World Cup earlier in the year. These products had not been commissioned. They were self-inspired and emanated from his profound joy at the manner in which a little island nation – one that was not unlike his own birthplace of Barbados – had tamed a powerful cricketing force that was a bullyboy in the cricketing politics of the 1990s.
This photograph taken there and then in our back garden marks the moment of the gifting ….. appropriately within an Australian backdrop of the bushfire danger kind. But, unlike that landscape, the paintings are unique. To my mind they are heirlooms. In conjunction with Verite Research and Shamara Wettimuny, I have approached the National Library Services Board in Colombo with the suggestion that they should be placed within its portals in public display with a suitable plaque.[1]
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