Mathew bowled him a chinaman and a googly, both of which he saw out.
Then out of nowhere a medium-paced leaper rose off the pitch and smashed into Turner’s hook nose. The batsman advanced down the pitch and had to be restrained.
We watched in stunned silence as carrom flicks and darters were mixed in with stock deliveries. The variation was mesmerising, the control exquisite. Hadlee, Bracewell and Sneddon scatterd like hacked limbs as Mathew raced to his eighth wicket. Palitha Epasekera mentioned the words ‘world record’ and everyone in the press box became excited. Mathew’s 8–50 was well ahead of the then Sri Lankan record, Ravi Ratnayake’s 8–83 vs Pakistan.
‘This is an upset,’ said the Kiwi journalist with the beak.
‘Just because you’re upset doesn’t make it an upset,’ grinned Ari, snapping his flashing camera at ten-minute intervals.
The former Sri Lankan record holder himself stood at mid-on and shared a kind word with the bowler. The Sri Lankan field crowded the batsmen as Mathew sent down consecutive maidens. The shadows of the surrounding hills tickled the boundary line and the New Zealand team stood outside their dressing room in various degrees of agitation. Turner got a single. Smith fended off a looping chinaman. Then he bowled it.
It pitched wide off leg, like a misplaced carrom ball, cut onto the off stump, then darted back into the stumps. The double bounce ball, cricket’s most magnificent creation. There was a loud boo from the New Zealand dressing room. Last man Chatfield swung at a top spinner, an edge flew by keeper Kuruppu, and they got a single.
Turner patted the wicket with the bat and shouted to the dressing room. ‘This pitch is fucked!’ Mathew then bowled another double bounce ball, this time turning from off to leg to take the middle stump. Turner stormed off in disgust.
New Zealand slumped from 111 for 2 to 117 all out. Mathew’s figures sat plainly on the scoreboard. 10–51. Two better than Jim Laker. There was jubilation in the press box as the players went in for tea. This wasn’t like Kuruppu’s slow double hundred. This was a real world record.
But all joy is fleeting. The New Zealanders refused to take the field after tea, calling the pitch ‘a shocker’. Intense discussions followed on the field between New Zealand tour management and the umpires. The Minister himself came down from the VIP stand to a standing ovation. The two captains were called and without pomp or ceremony the match was abandoned, as was the New Zealand tour.
The Minister gave an impromptu press conference minus anyone who was actually on the field. ‘The pitch has been deemed unsuitable …’
The three sessions of play were declared null and void. We were told that any paper publishing a match report would have its licence revoked. We looked on forlornly as history was erased. Cricket in Czechoslovakia indeed. It was the match that would never exist.
Asgiriya would have to wait six more years to host another test match. Today there is no record of the record, even in Wisden. There is no record of a second test match taking place. But everyone who was there knows what they saw. And for once, Ari and I agree. Whatever the reason for New Zealand’s collapse, it had very little to do with the pitch.
Wicketkeeper Conundrum
The fielder clad in armour who squats behind the batsman should be respected as a specialist and not treated as a dabbler. The wicketkeeper controls the mood around the pitch. His gloves hold most of the catches, his voice accompanies every appeal. He is the factory foreman, responsible for every ball.
In the early days, cricket valued its specialists. A wicketkeeper, like an opening bowler, was never expected to contribute with the bat. Times have changed.
Today, selectors face a wicketkeeper conundrum. Should we select purely on the basis of talent behind the stumps or should we consider batting? Do you pick a flawless keeper who averages 12.00 or a full-fledged batsman who may spill a sitter?
There is a young man from New South Wales who will soon replace Ian Healy as Australia’s stumper. I have seen him bat and I predict that soon he will close the door on this debate.
Mr Average
My only meeting with former Bloomfield wicketkeeper and acquaintance of Mathew, Mr Uvais Amalean, is at the ’98 Singer–Akai Nidahas Trophy final. The game is as good as gone. India are 230 without loss in the 40th over. India’s nuclear warheads, Tendulkar and Ganguly, both on unbeaten centuries, are ready to begin meltdown.
Then, against the run of play, a wicket falls, followed by two more. Azhar, Sachin, Ganguly miraculously succumb to our assembly line of low-grade spinners and the stadium rocks to frenzy. 262–4.
The mantra of ’96 had been: ‘We can chase anything.’ Our losses in South Africa had shaken this faith, but had not dented it.
Uvais Amalean had hung up his gloves years ago and was now a director at Singer, the name on the national team’s jerseys. He stands on the steps of the Nidahas pavilion, sporting a shaven head, a walkie-talkie and an annoyed expression. For a keeper he is tall. He has the gangly build of a pace bowler, though retirement has added pounds to his face and midriff. Like most bald men he is probably unaware of the roll of fat by the nape of his neck.
I have just bought a copy of his autobiography Mr Average at the gate despite the mockery of my two associates. ‘Pramodya Dharmasena’s biography, Not Fast, Not Spin, out now, Wije! Hurry!’
Amalean, the last Thomian to play for Sri Lanka, managed to make the 1989 tour to Australia as understudy to Brendon Kuruppu, and played a few matches in the early 1990s. But the selectors played musical chairs with the keeper’s berth and Amalean, reluctant to compete with younger men like Dunusinghe, Dasanayake and Lanka Silva, decided to bow out in ’93.
Two more wickets fall, but Sri Lanka are unable to prevent the visitors from crossing 300. In the corner of the stand, a potbellied drunk in a straw hat falls off his chair, staggers to his feet and starts unzipping his trousers. The stand begins hooting and, encouraged, the drunk undoes his belt.
Uvais Amalean enters the scene, flanked by security. ‘Kick all those buggers out,’ he hisses into his walkie-talkie. I accost him as he is passing and ask him to autograph his book. He is visibly flattered.
Security descends on the situation like flies on dog poop. As the drunks are herded past the toilets, the papare band flares up an ode to Surangani and her fish and the rest of us cheer as India end their innings at 307.
Ari pretends he met Uvais during an STC Old Boys Stag Night and pours on the charm. I attempt flattery. ‘In vain you retired, men. Look how many catches Kalu dropped.’
Jonny rolls his eyes, but Uvais nods. ‘He almost messed up that stumping.’ He then invites us to the sponsor’s box, and that’s when Jonny stops rolling his eyes.
The Premadasa Stadium, named after Ari’s benevolent dictator, is easily our most modern. The ground is equipped with floodlights, an electronic scoreboard and freshly cropped turf. The VIP lounge puts Jonny’s High Commission room to shame. The seats are padded, the bar is stocked, the air is conditioned and the view is sublime. We all grin at each other.
We receive seats up front and Ari and Jonny glare at me as I hesitate and then decline an offer of Bacardi and Pepsi, the unofficial sponsor. Uvais plonks himself in the seat in front of us and tells us that Sri Lanka will win.
‘We are good at chasing.’
The sponsor’s lounge is crowded with Singer logos, finger food and sycophants with smiles. Everyone who passes through the room comes over to our corner and shakes Uvais’s hand. It is then I realise that Amalean is politicking.
‘Petty politics has ruined this country and it will ruin our cricket if it is not stopped.’
Uvais is running for SLBCC president. His interaction with guests follows a very basic formula.
Long-lost brother greeting: ‘Ammataudu, kohomada? After a long time.’
Small talk: ‘Putting on, ah? How is so-and-so? You don’t call us, no, now you’re a big shot.’
Cricket talk: ‘Otherwise? We will hammer them. We still have the classic
batting line-up.’
Empty promise: ‘Of course. Let’s meet up. Definitely. I will call you.’
An Aravinda de Silva century, flanked by double-figure contributions by Messrs Jayasuriya, Atapattu, Kaluwitharana and Ranatunga, and the soundtrack of Uvais’s election banter, punctuate a revealing evening under floodlights.
‘They got rid of Ana Punchihewa, then Whatmore. What more?’ Uvais has a high-pitched hyena laugh. The three of us laugh at the laugh and not at the joke.
‘Selection should be on merit, not on favours. In my era, how many talented players were kept out?’
That was our cue. Jonny, Ari and I grab the mic at the same time.
‘Did you play with Pradeep Mathew?’
There is more hyena giggling and then he tells us about the 1989 Aussie tour and Pradeep’s courtship of Shirali Fernando.
The score reaches 200 for 4 just after the 30th. Sri Lanka looks on course. Amalean tells us how he kept wickets to Mathew for three seasons. ‘Man was injured a lot. But in my last season, he was amazing.’
The wicketkeeper and the spinner had a secret code. Mathew painted the index and ring fingers of his right (non-bowling) hand brown with ‘some Hindu powder from the kovil’. The painted fingers would indicate the direction of the spin, the unpainted ones the length. From there on, it got complicated.
‘In the end it was too much to remember. How many variations? Pradeep liked bowling with me. The Silvas and the Alwises wouldn’t put up with this hand signal nonsense.’
Uvais tells stories of Mathew spending the last three years of his career not talking with the captain or the vice captain.
‘Hello, Uvais. My God, Karunasena and Byrd! How? How?’
The former MD, now president of the SLBCC, Jayantha Punchipala, is Uvais’s opponent in the upcoming election. He has the blessings of the new minister and the establishment. His smile is as steely as his handshake. ‘You’ve met Dhani.’
Danila is wearing a T-shirt and a cap and her smile looks dowdy.
‘How? How? What happened with the documentary?’
‘ITL won the case. They might recut it and re-screen it.’
She avoids my eye and speaks directly with Ari. ‘I heard Rakwana is writing a novel.’
My blood freezes. ‘About what?’
‘About Rakwana. What else?’
There is awkwardness as two men who loathe each other smile for the public. Sri Lanka coast to 260 in the 40th with de Silva still at the crease. The journalists and cricket execs keep one eye on the match and one eye on the chatting titans beside us.
‘I was telling them about your good friend Mr Pradeep Mathew.’
Right then de Silva is caught by Harbhajan off Agarkar and no one notices the look that Jayantha Punchipala gives Danila.
When they have left, Uvais whispers, ‘That bitch has been with half the cricket team. Now she’s being kept by the man who thinks he can be king.’
‘Was she friendly with Mathew?’ asks Ari.
‘No one was friendly with Mathew …’
Then Upul Chandana falls to Kumble, then Dharmasena is foxed by Prasad. 20 runs from the finish line, the perahera of departing batsmen begins.
I have since read Uvais Amalean’s Mr Average. It is the sourest bunch of grapes ever turned into print. Each chapter offers excuses as to why Amalean didn’t play more than eleven tests. He uses formulae that baffle even Ari to show that if his best seven innings are considered, he would be the third greatest left-hander in the game.
It is halfway through the badly proofread text that I realise the title Mr Average is not a statement of modesty, but one of intent. He is not saying, as most of us believed, that he was an average player. He is saying that he is the Emperor of Averages.
He analyses each of Sri Lanka’s wicketkeepers and gives them points for batting and keeping. Specialist keepers like Navaratne, Goonetilaka and de Alwis score poorly on batting. Kalu, Silva and Kuruppu score modestly on keeping. When all these averages are tabulated and put through an index, Sri Lanka’s greatest wicketkeeper-batsman turns out to be, surprise, surprise, Uvais Ahmed Amalean.
That is only chapter three. The book is also highly critical of four tour managers, three selection committees and one captain. Why would he release this tirade while running for office? Perhaps he is running on misplaced idealism. Hoping that the establishment would favour the end of corruption. Not knowing that the end of corruption would be the end of the establishment.
Before the game goes to the wire, Uvais shares many interesting things. He tells us that seniors who earn hundreds of thousands of dollars cannot help but look down upon juniors who pocket rupee salaries.
He tells us that racism exists everywhere. Once he had tried to put his daughter into a prominent Colombo convent and was told that the Rs 15,000 entrance fee was only for Catholics. Buddhists had to pay 50,000, Muslims 100,000.
He tells us that he once accepted a lakh from a man in a bar to break the stumps seven times during a Sharjah game. ‘I didn’t think anything wrong. I didn’t have to play badly. Just flick the bails.’ Amalean gleefully broke the stumps every tenth over when receiving a throw and then, off the bowling of Wijesuriya and Jeganathan, he affected a couple of bogus stumpings. In the penultimate over, Fairbrother went for a suicidal run and was stranded by Tufnell. Amalean received the throw and hesitated.
‘I had already done it seven times. But how not to run him out?’
On returning to the pavilion, instead of a cash reward, Amalean received a call blasting him in raw filth. ‘Couldn’t understand if it was Afrikaans or Urdu.’
That was the last time Uvais Amalean ever received a call from a bookie, though he says players were approached all the time.
‘You’re in a bar. A rich fan offers to buy you a drink. You can’t be not polite. Next thing they send you a gold watch. Next thing they invite you to a party. Treat you like a friend. Then you get a call, asking to break the stumps seven times. How to say no?’
He tells us that Zimbabwean Anton Rose scored exactly 36 in 11 of his 21 innings. He once scored 40 against England and then followed it up with a 32.
‘But I don’t think Rose was fixed. I think the number 36 followed him around. Sometimes Allah controls the game.’
He scored 144 and 72 against Sri Lanka in 1994, putting Mathew, in particular, to the sword. Both numbers are multiples of 36. He followed those with six consecutive ducks, was dropped from the side and never played again. His average sits for all eternity at 36.00. Ari is more fascinated by this than me.
Uvais does not tell us why Mathew disappeared. Why he was never given a game on his final tour, despite scintillating domestic performances. Though he does tell us about Pradeep’s role in the dressing room. Ignored by senior players, Mathew befriended the reserves and the juniors. As time went on, he became a senior outcast, a spokesman for the meek.
‘The foreign coaches were correcting Sanath’s technique. Backlift too high, too much wrist. Trying to mould him into a classical opener. Suddenly in a team meeting, Pradeep blasted all the coaches and the seniors.’
Mathew suggested that the young left-hander be allowed to play his natural game, to hit over the top. The seniors expelled Mathew from the meeting; the foreign coaches ignored him. But luckily, the batsman in question did not.
‘Everyone claims to have invented the Sanath–Kalu combination,’ says Uvais. ‘Pradeep suggested it during the ’94 New Zealand tour.’ Uvais lowers his voice. ‘This is for your ears only, I will deny it if you repeat it.’
He tells us of a young off-spinner from Kandy who was asked to change his action by management. ‘We all thought he chucked. Only Pradeep, who was the most senior spinner by then, said the action was not illegal.’
Mahanama, our last recognised batsman, departs, and in waddles Charith Silva, recently recalled to the side and victim of India’s nuclear eruption earlier in the game.
‘Pradeep wrote a letter to the captain and the coach. ‘If you l
et this boy bowl, he will be the greatest bowler of all time. If you change his action, he will be another forgotten Tamil bowler.’
Charith Silva is run out without facing a ball, Sri Lanka falls short by 6 runs and the crowd hoots. Unlike our subcontinental brothers, we do not throw bottles or light fires. We save our barbarism for the north and the east. We join the disappointed throng to the car park. I repeat Uvais’s whispers to Ari and Jonny. Neither of them believes me.
Six months later, Jayantha Punchipala is elected SLBCC president in a landslide. Uvais Amalean scores less than a third of his batting average and receives 8 per cent of the vote. Two months later, the president, under investigation for corruption, is forced to resign and another interim committee is appointed on the eve of the 1999 World Cup. Mr Average sells out its first print run, but is never reprinted.
Wild Boar Curry
‘I was in the VIP section,’ says I.E. Kugarajah. The way he says it – as one would say ‘I had eggs for breakfast’ – it doesn’t sound like a boast. ‘I remember when the Minister ran down to save the match.’
We are on our second drink (non-alcoholic for me, of course) and I am still uncertain whether the person attached to the moustache before me is a friend or a foe. Kuga is delighted to hear I am writing a book.
‘A book on Pradeepan? That is a pukka idea.’
‘Is he really dead?’
‘According to the family.’
‘According to you?’
‘I can’t say.’
‘I have a certificate from …’
‘The fat sister? You also got that photocopy?’
‘Why would the family lie?’
‘Because they’re afraid.’
For a thug there is something delicate about the way he caresses his glass, like a saxophone player looking for notes. The way his eyes linger on your face. The way he pauses after each sentence to consider what has been said.
‘That letter was a forgery. I have people in Melbourne.’
‘Meaning?’
The Legend of Pradeep Mathew Page 25
