by Rohan Wijeratne
Over thirty years of watching this once beautiful country being dragged to the gutter in front of my own eyes has made me develop the kind of aversion to politics and politicians of every hue which is best left unsaid. I am therefore not easily given to singing their praise unless they thoroughly well deserve it. Besides I leave it to others who are much better at it than myself, to do the palavering. Some do it peerlessly, often singing the praise of various politicians as though this whole world would stop turning on its axis if not for them. Such types we know are in actual fact, singing for their supper and we understand and sympathize with them and their predicament. You can’t after all fill your stomach on principles and values can you? But then, some writers are a bit different I guess.

• A remarkable statement from the Sports Minister

I make this explanation very early so that the reader is thoroughly well aware what I am about when I say that I doff my hat to the Minister of Sports for something he has said recently said concerning play grounds. It is not often that a politician would say such things and coming from the sports minister, I thought it a most remarkable statement. I was even tempted to put it down to lack of experience in the art of politicking that our youthful minister would actually scoff at the idea of turning a perfectly normal and immensely well serving play ground to a cultural centre. For we all know how their eyes gleam when politicians see a bare piece of land and then descend upon it with some hair-brained idea all in the name of development!

"This is terrible" Johnston Fernando has observed. "I have never seen a country where they convert a ground to a cultural centre. If we actually need a cultural centre, we could find some other place in close proximity to the Colombo city, but not a ground used by thousands daily". Very well said we say, and if that’s the attitude of the Sports minister in all matters concerning sports, things may start to be looking up for sports in this country as long as this man is in place.

• Destroying our priceless greenery

The Nomads grounds as we knew it, or to be more precise the municipality grounds is a superbly well appointed one that serves more or less as an extension to our Viharamahadevi park. The whole area is one of the few green belts left in the city which has escaped man’s insanity to do away with what has given our city the name it has earned in the past. It was then known as the garden city of the east, and when Lee Kuan Yew saw this place three decades ago, he wanted Singapore to be similarly transformed. It took him less than a decade to achieve it, but in the intervening time, we set about destroying this priceless green canopy that gave us everything from shade and oxygen to beauty and instead slowly transformed the city into a concrete slum. But that’s another story which we must leave behind for the moment Right now, our focus is on the Nomads grounds.

• A ground steeped in history

The ground itself is steeped in history. It came into being in the early part of the last century after the Singhalese Sports Club was formed in 1899. It was the exclusive preserve of the SSC till about 1951 when running out of their lease which was not renewed, they were compelled to move to alternate spaces afforded to them by the Municipality. This is where the club now stands, at Maitland Place; no doubt a worthy if not better substitute than its predecessor. The former SSC Grounds (or the Municipality grounds as we now have it) had seen some fine cricketers play on it particularly in the 1930’s. Senior citizens will perhaps recollect Dr. C. H. Gunasekera the All-Ceylon captain chastising ‘Nobby’ Clark for digging up the pitch for Verity to cause havoc later in the day bowling at Clark’s footmarks. Also some may remember the hundreds by Hassett and Badcock and McCabe’s exquisite late cut for four, the only shot he played before perishing soon after. These were the 1938 Australians and they too played at the ‘Old SSC’ In fact, much cricket of great pedigree was played there until in 1939 the second world war intervened and cricket took a back seat the world over. When P. Saravanamuttu built the Colombo Oval in the 1940’s the international matches were shifted to that location for obvious reasons such as better seating arrangements and other facilities. Till then, it was the CCC and the SSC that served as our premier grounds for all international matches. Standing much larger then what it is today, with its boundary line on the St. Bridget’s side just about where the dual carriageway now stands on Alexandra Road, the SSC Grounds was really a great sight with a lovely line of trees surrounding it. And for those with a streak of daring in them, the ‘big hit’ was to try and deposit the ball into St. Bridget’s Convent if one could!

• Nomads played some wonderfully competitive cricket

Once SSC moved away, the Municipality took over, and forming their own club — the Nomads — played some wonderfully competitive cricket in the late sixties and early seventies. What was remarkable about that was that they did so mainly with cricketers from the less privileged schools. This was particularly so during the time when D. H. de Silva the Charity Commissioner was at the helm of their cricket. D.H. was of course one of the finest cricketing brains we had in this country, and much like Brian Close in attitude. His regular charges included Daya Sahabandu, W. L. Vidanage, Anura Polonowita younger brothers D.P. and D.S. (both ‘internationals’ along with D.H.) and a host of others who would perhaps never have been known in cricketing circles if not for Nomads and D.H. in particular.

• A fit of madness

During those halcyon days of Nomads cricket under D.H.’s stewardship, they gave a good run to all the better fancied clubs in the Sara Trophy and produced in the rush some wonderfully entertaining cricket. The ground itself catered to many of the lesser privileged schools who for lack of a fair priced sporting centre, hired out the Nomads Grounds for their cricket and other sports. Since those days it served thousands of lesser privileged children from lesser known schools, and served them well until the last government decided in a fit of madness to turn it into a cultural centre. It was a move as hard to comprehend as many of its other decisions for which it earned notoriety during their time.

• The old pavilion ideal for a cricket museum

Through it all, one thing still stands sentinel. That is the old SSC pavilion on the far side of the Municipality grounds. I do not know as what it now serves as, but whatever it may be, nothing would be more appropriate than to house this country’s very first cricket museum there, for the building itself is steeped in cricket history. If this Interim Committee men want to do something worthwhile towards preserving our cricketing roots, they may seriously think of such a project and if and when they get down to it, there couldn’t be too many better places to house it than the old SSC pavilion. It has got the kind of character in an architectural sense that is synonymous with a project such as a museum and further, it will naturally help preserve the building a lot longer than it otherwise would.

• Three types of marine engineers!

A marine engineer once explained that there are three types of marine engineers — those who can count and those who can’t! Having given myself away as to what I am about professionally, I realized that I must come dangerously close to belonging to the latter category, after having read my own piece last week!

• A correction from last week

In it I had defined an all rounder as one who could be picked entirely for any one of the following two disciplines as a specialist — namely batting, bowling and wicket keeping’! What I meant to say was that an all rounder is one who can be picked entirely for any TWO of the following THREE disciplines as a specialist — namely, batting bowling and wicket keeping. Mercifully, I am correcting myself here! Also since I hadn’t given in my list any wicket keepers in that category who merited mention, let me start off with the earliest of them all, Leslie Ames of Kent and England. He was truly a wonderful wicket keeper and a wonderful bat leave alone being a great servant of cricket. Then comes Dennis Lindsay of South Africa to mind, and who could ever forget what he did to Bill Lawry’s men just a few years before South Africa’s inglorious exit from international cricket! And of course we have the latter day heroes such as Gilchrist and Andy Flower who have proved beyond all doubt that having an all rounder be it even a wicket keeper is as good as carrying an additional man in your side. The more the all-rounders therefore, the greater the number of ‘additional men’ in your team! That is I believe, the simplest way to drive home the point regarding the merits of all-rounders in any side.

• Even the ‘tail’ must contribute with the bat

Whilst on this theme, it is fair to say that the days when bowlers were only called upon to bowl and then allowed to go to pasture are long gone. One of the secrets of the Australian dominance is that their tail does not start until their last man McGrath troops in And even he, we are told, is under the tutelage of skipper Steven Waugh to improve his batting!

Given the fact that all players visit the crease twice in a Test match, the bottom half of the team needs to know that they have to contribute to the score as well. And one of the yardsticks of measurement of the overall success of any side would be the efficacy with which its bottom half wags!