By Ranil Mendis with Evin Mohamed
The Palace finally gave approval. The man of the moment at Temple Trees had already signified his assent. The die was cast. Now it was up to the members of the Old Thomians Sports Club (OTSC) to find a suitable biographer.

To be decided at the highest level of government with intense pressure from the international community and NGOs etc, the subject of the biography has to be of paramount importance. And so he is! It is no big secret that Evin is the most brilliant man in Sri Lanka. He is streets ahead of Sir Arthur Clarke and only short of Newton and Einstein in world ranking. He is definitely on par with Henry Kissinger, Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot. He is a National Treasure.

Generations to come will cherish the wonderful achievements of Sherlock and Hercule due to the faithful services of their biographers, Dr. Watson and Dr. Hastings. So it was proposed on the advice of the Foreign Minister who is ever conscious of National Prestige and knows these things best that an eminent Thomian Scholar G L should be first choice to be Evin’s biographer.

The Foreign Minister is a legend in his own right and his advice should override those of any other. He is the only cricketer dead or alive that had a cricket stadium named after him. So, in the Hall of Fame in world cricket our Foreign Minister is ranked Number One, with Don Bradman two, and Garfield Sobers three.

One young reporter for the Island whom we shall call MS did a story on this. After all National Heroes in cricket should be given due recognition and acclaim. Sobers of course was an all rounder with a batting average of around 63 and very good bowling and fielding averages. Bradman had an outstanding and unsurpassable average of 99.99.

MS was delighted. He was so proud that a Sri Lankan would be the only cricketer in history to have a test record exceeding an average of 100. And so to get the exact number he immaculately searched one copy of Wisden after another for the Foreign Minister’s track record.

The final numbers for the Foreign Minister in test cricket was Matches played 0, Innings batted 0, overs bowled 0, wickets taken 0, everything else was also 0.

MS was flabbergasted! He turned to his old Maths tutor Evin and asked him how these numbers beat Don Bradman’s 99.99. ‘’It’s higher Mathematics old chap," said Evin. ‘’It’s really very simple. I don’t know what the difficulty is. If you divide 0 by one its infinity. And infinity is infinitely greater than 99.99. So, naming the cricket stadium after the Foreign Minister is entirely justified. Not only that, he should be made President of the ICC."

However, Evin was not entirely in favour of following the Foreign Minister’s advice to the committee of OTSC to elect G L as his biographer. He wanted me instead. With that objective in view, he had been generously buying, on someone else’s account, double after double, for the topers in the committee of OTSC.

When the vote was finally taken Evin’s old fashioned entertainment had overcome the influential advice of the Foreign Minister. I won. G L lost. I am now the proud biographer of Evin. I was elated. History will hold me on par with Dr. Watson and Dr. Hastings.

Evin proved that Newton’s law of gravity, which says that what goes up, must come down also applies to elation. He whispered in my ear that he prefers Poodles to Professors. ‘’How like Madam," I thought!