by Channa Gunasekara
"Having been involved in the game for the past six decades or so as player, coach, administrator and spectator, I found Ajith C. S. Perera’s book, ‘Thinking Cricket’ a revelation in the art of coaching. Conceived in a totally different dimension, as against the usual straight-laced method of diffusing coaching knowledge, he has succeeded in marrying technical details to basic fundamentals, in simplistic and easy to understand style.

A keen student of the game, Ajith has brought to bear his academic qualifications as a Chartered Analytical Chemist together with Man-Management skills acquired later in his professional career, in compiling this rare book. All aspects of the game, be it batting, bowling, fielding, captaincy, discipline, physical training, umpiring and even net practices and equipment, areas of which are not usually covered in conventional cricket coaching manuals, have found space here. One could perceive the comprehensiveness of this stupendous effort by the fact that he has brought into focus a little thought-of subject, ’the power of mind’. Like in most endeavours in life, success in this game is achieved through the strength of mind and character. In short, it is very much a mind game, more so in today’s high-pressure environment and this aspect has not been lost sight of.

Ajith, a very persevering young man with a deep-rooted love of the game, has come up with a classic training manual, that one of lesser strength would not have contemplated. After collecting academic honours in the field of Chemistry, he on his own qualified as a First Class Umpire, but on the eve of his ‘Test Debut’, he met with a cruelly horrendous accident which left him as a paraplegic, thus cutting short a promising career even before it blossomed. Confined to a wheelchair ever since, did not daunt him from picking up the threads of a broken dream and persevered with a rare will and dedication, to be a winner. ‘Thinking Cricket’ is the result.

With my long association with the game and with whatever I learnt from it, I have no reservations in recommending this book to all coaches and players, be they school, club, first class or test cricketers. I am only sorry that we did not have such a quality manual in our playing days.