The Legend of Pradeep Mathew

by Shehan Karunatilaka

  ‘Can we stop with your Thora bullshit?’

  ‘You are looking weak, Wije. Do you realise you are killing yourself?’

  If only he knew. That is all I have been thinking about. My death and Charles Darwin and Cary Grant.

  I have come across two clippings from my scrapbooks, both from local newspapers, both yellow and faded. If this book gets published I will include both photos on this page, though I do not know how much it costs to have photos in books. But I do not mind bearing the cost for the sake of my reader.

  Who is this reader? Who am I writing for? Some days I think I am writing for Pradeep. To preserve his legacy before it is forgotten. To encourage other Pradeeps out there. Other days I feel I am writing for my withered ego. To show Newton, Elmo, Rakwana and all the other pretenders what it is to really write about cricket.

  Most times I feel I am writing for Garfield and little Jim Laker, for them to know that there can be greatness in the world and that if they avoid being like me, they may be part of it. Or for Sheila and Ari and Jonny to know that I didn’t just waste my time drinking and causing fights.

  Picture Darwin. Old, grey, bearded. How you would picture God, the very fellow they claim Darwin tried to replace. Picture Cary Grant. Suave, debonair, dashing. How you would picture James Bond who Grant almost played.

  Grant died aged eighty-two, Darwin was seventy-three when he passed on. Why do we remember one as an old man and the other as a dapper fellow? Who is in control of our legacies and is there any way we can influence them? For those of us who are neither movie stars nor scientific visionaries, I fear the answer may be no.

  I wish to be remembered on the cover of TIME holding aloft my Olympic gold. For the 6 that I hit off the last ball. For the joke I told that everyone laughed at.

  But what if I am remembered as the drunk who insulted his sister-in-law? As the coward who hid under the bed when the burglars came? As the man who was always clean bowled first ball?

  There are some days, when the sun hits my window and the birds are silent and my fingers hover over the keys like God moving over the water’s face, when I feel I am writing a glorious symphony for the whole world to close their eyes to. But sadly those days are too few and too far between.

  The Great Anton Rose

  Mathew didn’t just lose me a job, he also lost me my chance at an extra income. Kreeda, a magazine I helped found, was banned by the government because I couldn’t resist writing a piece on the Asgiriya test. The magazine was shut down and I made fresh enemies.

  Enemies appear to be what Pradeep and I have in common. Pradeep fought with two captains, six coaches, three vice captains and at least one cricket administrator. But according to Charith, Reggie, Amalean and the GLOB, his only true nemesis was Zimbabwean Anton Rose.

  Certain cricketers are unlucky to have been born where they were. Astounding talents like Bevan, Slater and McGill would have been national greats had they come from anywhere other than Australia. At present they may be unable to enjoy full international careers due to the cluster of talent that is Australia.

  If Pradeep Mathew was one cricketer disadvantaged by the country of his birth, the Zimbabwean Anton Rose was another. The boy from Bulawayo lost his farm and his career to the Mugabe regime. It is another of cricket’s tragedies.

  Every skill in cricket can be taught, but timing is a gift from God. To know the nanosecond when the willow should be applied to leather to bring forth the sweetest music and the most wondrous stroke. Only a few have that. Sathasivam did, Viv Richards did, and so did the great Anton Rose.

  If Mathew was cursed for his race and his temperament, then Rose had a very different curse.

  ‘For each ball, Rose had five or six different shots,’ says Amalean. ‘Only great players have this. But then after he reached thirty-six, he would hit every ball to the fielder.’

  ‘Rose is the only batsman Pradeep never conquered,’ says Charith.

  ‘Others, even if they hammered, he would revenge. Rose could pick every variation.’

  Throughout Booth Beckmann’s biography Rose cites Pradeep as the bowler he most enjoyed playing against. ‘Only one bowler could really challenge me. Mathew from Sri Lanka. But I think I got the better of him.’

  Beckmann’s book depicts an ambitious man of principle, a perfectionist prone to depression. It is the most candid cricket biography I have read, and it is a scathing attack on Pradeep’s perceived gamesmanship and lack of sportsmanship.

  ‘He would never be great, because he was not a good character. He is an example to all youngsters on how to waste talent,’ says Rose in Chapter 17.

  There is a mythical story of two nineteenth-century planters, one Englishman and one Burgher, who would meet on different Ceylon hills on June’s longest day and challenge each other to 5-over games. Each had plantation workers who would field for them. Only the two planters would bat or bowl. Their first game would have been the world’s first recorded limited-overs game, had anyone bothered to record it.

  Like the Devil and the Wandering Jew meeting in an East End tavern once every century. They would play till sunset and the loser of the most games would treat the victor to dinner and drinks at the local planters’ club.

  Legend has it that every planters’ bungalow from Hatton to Diyatalawa has the score carved into one of its trees. Those who remember the story have no idea where the trees are. I do remember seeing ‘England 7–Ceylon 5. Jun ’46’ carved into a jacaranda tree, though I cannot remember if it was in Maskeliya or Hatton.

  Rose was largely responsible for Pradeep Mathew’s figures of 0–218. They are the worst figures in cricket history, though even that record no longer appears to exist. I know that Mathew recovered from this thrashing to dismiss Rose in the final test for a duck. And that it was the beginning of a slump that would end Rose’s career. And eventually Mathew’s.

  All my witnesses remember the vicious sledging that went on between them, but no one remembers what caused it. After his wife was attacked in their Harare home, Rose left Zimbabwe and cricket and became an exiled critic of Robert Mugabe. After extorting NZ$278,000, Pradeep Mathew disappeared to somewhere no one knows.

  I sometimes conjure up my own mythical match. Played on the fields of Europe and America, from Budapest to Texas, from Berlin to Caracas. Once every ten years, cricket exiles Anton Rose and Pradeep Mathew meet to settle who is the greatest unsung. The fielders who do not bat and bowl are illegal refugees from both their troubled nations. Loser pays for catering.

  Mathew bowls, Rose bats. In between unplayable googly and deft leg glance, they sledge each other, though more in the manner of bitter uncles than young hotheads.

  ‘Next year I will play for English counties. After that I will play for England. Where will you be?’

  Mathew will trundle in, wave his spider-like limbs and bowl a darter or a boru ball or a double bounce ball, and Rose will be bowled.

  Mathew will smile and adjust his headband. ‘I will always be on a green field bowling a ball that you will have no answer for.’

  The Follow-on

  A follow-on is when a team falls woefully short of its opponent and is invited to bat again. It’s the winning side sneering, ‘Go on. Have another. Bet you still can’t catch us.’ If the opposing side fails, it is called an innings defeat, the worst possible ignominy for a team playing test cricket.

  While the team following on is usually fighting for dear life, the follow-on is also a chance for redemption, to undo the mistakes of the first innings. More often than not, the team following on loses the test. But there have been some spectacular exceptions.

  Double Bounce Ball

  I saw it on two occasions. And for that I am grateful. At Asgiriya in 1987 and at Kettarama in 1991. It is undoubtedly the strangest ball ever invented. The mystery of mystery balls. A ball that bounces and changes direction twice.

  A 5 ounce, spherical, leather-bound object made to behave like a pebble skimming water.

  Reggie R
anwala says that Pradeep bowled two consecutively against Anton Rose in 1994 and that both were declared no-balls. We have footage of Mercantile Credit vs Sathosa, 1986. Premlal Fernando and Basil Goonatilaka were bowled by double bounce balls.

  Newton claims he helped perfect it in 1993 and that there is nothing illegal about a ball that bounces twice. Gokulanath said he knew how to bowl it, though he could not show us.

  I remember it in the Bloomfield vs Nomads game 1994, perhaps Mathew’s second greatest performance. I was with Ari and Renga. Every over Renga reminded us that the young new batsman was his nephew Marvan Arnold. Short ball outside leg. Arnold pulled at thin air. Ball cut to his off, pitched, bounced into the wicket. Renga swore.

  ‘I’ve never seen anything like that,’ said Ari.

  ‘That’s the best ball I’ve ever seen,’ said I.

  We turned to Renga.

  He scowled and pretended to write in his notepad. ‘I’ve seen better,’ he said.

  Scorpion Kick

  The SSC is festooned in blue.

  ‘They’re all here today, mate.’

  The man who greets me is Sid Barnes, member of Bradman’s Invincibles. He wears a grin and sunglasses and carries two baskets. He was called Suicide Sid because he used to field close without helmet or box. Not because he suffered from bipolar disorder and overdosed on barbiturates in ’73.

  The stadium is crowded and I see no Jonny, but I do see Ari.

  ‘What are you doing in my dream?’ I ask.

  ‘This is not a dream, Putha. This is a hallucination.’

  ‘There is a difference?’

  ‘Dreams are when you sleep. You are in a coma with your eyes open.’

  ‘How did that happen?’

  ‘Two bottles yesterday?’

  ‘My level is five drinks.’

  ‘Why call it a level when you don’t stick to it?’

  On the field Pakistan is playing Sri Lanka – well, that is what the colours tell me. But while the bowler in green is positively Imran Khan, the batsman appears to be Sri Lanka’s current president in a blue sari. There are pictures of her hanging from the rafters.

  ‘Is this a match or a political rally?’

  ‘This is the ‘99 World Cup final.’

  ‘But they haven’t played it yet.’

  A tall white man approaches and tries to sell us kadale. I recognise him as I shoo him away.

  ‘Hey, Jack Iverson,’ shouts Ari. ‘Come back. I’ll buy your kadale.’

  ‘You’re in the kadale business now?’ I ask, but Iverson does not respond.

  On the field the score keeps decreasing. It was 400 for 5, now it is 210 for 7. The blues and greens hurt my eyes; there is the noise of papare and cheering everywhere. David Bairstow, honk-nosed ex-England wicketkeeper, sells us sweep tickets. He too does not speak and his tickets all carry the number 5198. And then arrives the bum. ‘Got some spare rupees, brother?’

  ‘Jonny?’ says Ari.

  I see that beneath the grime it is indeed Jonny. We seat him next to us and give him kadale.

  ‘Things aren’t going well,’ says Jonny, bottom lip quivering.

  ‘You still didn’t get to heaven?’

  ‘No, look. England are 33 for 9.’

  Minister C.V. Gooneratne is batting in blue. Wasim Akram races in and hits him on the thigh pad. The fielders go up and so does the umpire’s finger. Then the umpire runs up to the wicketkeeper and high-fives him.

  All the players come and hug the umpire. The batsman storms off in disbelief.

  ‘Ari. WeeGee. I knew he was fourteen.’

  ‘But you said you didn’t?’

  ‘Anthony was sixteen. Joseph was fourteen. I knew.’

  I look at Ari who looks away. ‘There’s Ole Neiris. I better be off.’

  I see Ari disappear into the crowd though I see no midget.

  On the field Pakistan are now batting, though I recognise the batsman as Lalith Dissanayake, the late minister. Vaas’s first ball shatters the bat. A shard of it lands on the wicket. The crowd cheers.

  ‘It’s not what you think, WeeGee. I loved him.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Jonny.’

  ‘He loved me. He even visited me in prison.’

  ‘I don’t need to know.’

  Clear the air passages. We need more oxygen.

  Man with glasses and beard looking down. My office ceiling fan turning.

  The next batsman is Derek Randall, who is followed by a butcher with a wheelbarrow of pork chops. ‘He gets a chop for each boundary he scores!’ says a man who may not be Justin Fashanu, the homosexual footballer who hanged himself a year ago.

  Unrecognisable faces. Except the angel in the back who is crying.

  Lots of voices, none in unison. Don’t cry, Sheila. I tried.

  Buck Shelford is wearing a headguard and bowling off spin to Ranasinghe Premadasa. On drive. Georgie Best gives chase from mid-wicket and stops a certain boundary. ‘Georgie, where did it all go wrong?’ shouts someone in the crowd.

  Jonny taps me and shows me a fifty rupee note. ‘Why is Jimmy Carter in a nilame outfit on the back of our fifty rupee note?’ I reply that I do not know but that it is so.

  Ambulance doors, white pre-coffin. Two faces, both I recognise and love.

  One says, C’mon Wije. Stay with us. The other sobs.

  Minister J.R. Athulathmudali gets hit in the unmentionables by an underarm full toss from English aristocrat bully Douglas Jardine. The crowd boos.

  Doors. Ceilings. Faces. Voices.

  I’ve lost pulse. Get him to theatre now.

  Pradeep Mathew is facing Kerry Packer. Mathew in green, Packer in blue. The ball is skied for a certain 6, when from the stands out jumps a hairy man. It is Colombian goalkeeper Rene Higuita. He runs to the boundary and scorpion-kicks the ball back into play. The crowd goes wild.

  Maha Dena Mutta

  So now we are back at Nawasiri. Different room, worse view, no AC. Always hot or maybe that’s just me. I am hooked up to a fish tank and I have a new term in my vocabulary: renal failure. I could explain to you what it means, but I have bored you enough already.

  That last chapter was written in bed by hand on this exercise book where I used to record Colombo Municipality rates. I see I paid them diligently in the 1970s and then let them slide in the 1980s when our taxes went towards rifles and not roads. The government stopped caring, I stopped paying.

  The ache in my fingers has travelled past my wrist and has annexed my shoulder. Only if I hold my torso at a precise angle can I prevent the pain from shooting up my side whenever I put pencil to pad. Ari has offered me a solution, a very generous one. He has offered me his daughters.

  Each one has volunteered to come on a different day, to record my ramblings and then to faithfully type them. Manouri even made up a roster:

  Monday: Rochelle

  Tuesday: Michelle

  Wednesday: Stephanie

  Thursday: Melissa

  Friday: Aruni

  Weekend: Reading of drafts

  If I’m to be under observation for a month, this is a sustainable way of finishing my work. But the chaos of five different hands and five different brains fills me with dread. How do I revise when I know not who typed what? I can barely tell Ari’s daughters apart by sight. Manouri came over and provided me with photographs and biographical details and kind assurances that ‘The girls are happy to do it, we all enjoy your writing’.

  I am touched though I do not say so. Though I’m still nervous about having five different middlemen (who are girls) between me and the page. Then I see a picture of a recent Byrd family trip to Adam’s Peak and an idea hits me.

  Sri Lankan folklore is littered with as many buffoons as the Sri Lankan parliament. One such character is Maha Dena Mutta, a foolish sage with five dimwitted pupils. The bumbling adventures of this merry troupe involve a goat’s head, a boggy marsh and buckets of slapstick. While the tales are somewhat forgettable, the names and physical descriptions of his
five pupils are most definitely not.

  The shortest is Rabbada Aiya (Toddy Belly), the simplest, Puwak Badilla (Areca Nut Eater), the tallest, Kotu Kithaiya (Stick Figure), the chubbiest, Polbe Moona (Coconut Face), the thinnest, Indikatu Pancha (Tiny Needle). Looking over Manouri’s photos and hearing her gossip-laden descriptions of her stepdaughters, the stories of Maha Dena Mutta and his men come to mind. I now have both a system and a method:

  Monday. Rochelle, thirty-four.

  Always pregnant, talkative. Rabbada Aiya.

  Tuesday. Michelle, thirty-two.

  Fair, hair colour black, should be blonde. Puwak Badilla.

  Wednesday. Stephanie, twenty-eight.

  Hippie, looks like high jumper. Kotu Kithaiya.

  Thursday. Melissa, twenty-four.

  Bit of a number, round face. Polbe Moona.

  Friday. Aruni, eighteen.

  Tiny and sweet. Indikatu Pancha.

  Done.

  Toddy Belly

  I’d like you to put RA at the top of all the sheets you type, um … Rochelle. It’s a sort of code I have devised to keep my notes in order. This is your third child? Fourth? Those days all the families had six, seven children. Now how to afford? But your husband is doing well. He is an engi … ah grocer. So? People have to eat. Yes. That’s fascinating. Shall we start? Only one hour also, no?

  Graham Snow visited me yesterday.

  Everyone in the ward is excited and for a day I am more popular than the curly-haired quadruplets born upstairs.

  Graham brings me books I cannot hold and VCDs I cannot watch.

  ‘I hear you’re finishing your book. Did you read mine?’

  ‘I didn’t like your chapter on the ’76 summer.’

  ‘Make ‘em grovel?’

  ‘It sounded a bit bitter, not like you.’

  ‘You and Ari know how bitter I can get. What are your thoughts for the World Cup? You gave me a good tip last time.’