Today we reproduce the farewell speech delivered by late Gamini Dissanayake on 25 June 1989 when he stepped down as President of Board of Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka. Dissanayake held the position of President of BCCSL during a significant period of Sri Lankan cricket history.

I have held the post of President, Board of Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka, for eleven years, the longest period of office after Mr. Robert Senanayake. For me, these were very purposeful and creative years, years which were filled with many joyous moments and also provided the loneliest moment of my life.

I have been through many experiences, both in public life and in my personal life. I would like to refer to some of these experiences now, to illustrate to you what I consider to be the most difficult moment of my life.

In 1973, when I was a member of the opposition, our party faced a by-election in Dedigama, The former President of Sri Lanka, Mr. J. R. Jayewardene and I conducted the UNP campaign for this by-election. We learnt that in some areas of the electorate, large numbers of our voters were being set upon and assaulted.

Mr. Jayewardene asked me to lead a small band of 300 of our supporters to ensure that our voters were not molested. I did so, but suddenly found myself in the midst of a mob of around 4000 who had been brought in to engulf us in a situation of terror. Our supporters had been intimidated to such an extent that they had taken to their heels, and I was left there, all by myself, to hold the fort. I did not feel any loneliness then, I only felt that I will face this gang of marauders and, if necessary, I will face them alone.

Again, in 1976, I attended a meeting with Mr. Ronnie de Mel in Devinuwara, when we were assaulted by a mob of people; a young man in our party who had been assaulted with a bottle, succumbed to that assault, and died in my lap. I grieved for, this senseless loss of life, but a feeling of loneliness did not overwhelm me even on this tragic occasion.

For me, the loneliest moment of my life was when the question of Sri Lanka's full membership to' the International Cricket Conference was being debated at Lord's in 1981.

I have the confidence to address mass rallies of 100,000 people, or meetings of cabinet ministers and members of Parliament, but to be required to rationalise Sri Lanka's eligibility to the most exclusive club in the world in an atmosphere which, though not hostile, was difficult, was something I had never faced before and which I would not like to face again.

The worst that could have happened to Sri Lanka was to have been rejected, the best, to have been admitted, but there was something in between which was even more forbidding - the postponement; and if this decision on our full membership was deferred, there was every likelihood that the postponement would have been for a very long time.

What happened on that fateful day is history. With the backing of our friends I ensured that Sri Lanka was admitted as a full member of the ICC. We were admitted on the basis that we would do everything to put the cricketing infrastructure of our country right. What we have got, in our country today is one of the finest cricketing infrastructures in the whole world. Very few Cricket Boards, other than England, have a Board Headquarters of these standards. Very few countries have a Cricket Foundation which takes the game out into the Provinces. Very few have groups of people, such as you, with the dedication to mind and plan out our cricket future. We have during the past few years accelerated the growth of cricket, accelerated the development of cricket thinking, and accelerated the march of the country toward excellence in cricket.

Unfortunately cricket in Sri Lanka, like everything else, is conditioned by the situation in the country. If because of our domestic problems cricket teams are compelled to abandon tours in mid stream and visits by foreign teams-cannot be arranged in future, we would be facing very difficult and trying times. Cricket cannot exist in a vacuum. We have to pitch ourselves against international competition to improve the cricketing capacity of our players, to get public enthusiasm and the private sector committed to funding and promoting cricket.

The Cabinet of Ministers has given a directive to the Ministry of Sports not to interfere with sports bodies. I will see from wherever I am that there is no interference with the Board of Control for Cricket. You on your part must ensure, by being united, by planning ahead, by anticipating the future, that cricket becomes a major force in our country. As I said earlier, our cricket will, be to a large extent influenced by the situation in the country. I hope the situation will improve, so that we have foreign teams visiting Sri Lanka. Not necessarily national teams, but Under-25 teams, schoolboy teams, county teams and representative teams which the Board must plan for now. Our domestic cricket must be restructured on a Provincial basis, and I hope the new President and Office Bearers will do their very best to see that there are strong Provincial teams competing with one another in the future. We must work towards this. We must have 4 or 5 Provincial teams competing with each other for very attractive rewards, so that this will become the primary cricket tournament in Sri Lanka. As long as the club tournament continues to be our major tournament, I do not see how our cricket can develop at truly national levels.

School cricket continues to be the main nursery from which the cricketing talent from Sri Lanka emerges. Both the Board and the Foundation should get together and help the Schools' Cricket Association much more than we have done in the past. Also, during the past seven years we have had the benefit of many cricketers of international repute - like Gary Sobers - coming to Sri Lanka and working with us. This should continue to be our policy. We have liberalised our economy, we have now liberalised the tea industry, in my view we should also liberalise cricket, get more people to visit Sri Lanka, get our young people to interact with them, get foreign coaches here, because this is the only way we can quicken the pace and develop our cricketers.

This morning, when I was leaving the house for this meeting, my wife came to the door and said, "Good luck. It has been a good innings for us. Tell your friends in the Board of Control that it was a great pleasure for me also to be associated with them." We have both had a unique experience here and abroad; the excellence of the international cricketing community stands out in a sometimes cruel and contentious world, and this has been one of the finest and most rewarding experiences that we have had.

About the question of South Africa, I have no private views but I have a cricketing view, a civilised view, adopted by the Gleneagles Agreement, now to be endorsed, with further modification, by the ICC. It is now internationally accepted that it is a' shame for sportsmen to have cricket contacts with South Africa, which denies the basic humanity to coloured people. The policy of our Board must be one of principles. The West Indies has imposed a life ban for those who have sporting contacts with South Africa. President Zia of Pakistan had said that those who go to South Africa will be publicly whipped. We have to follow the international leaders in this matter, otherwise we would become the lepers of the international community.

A South African rugby football team recently toured New Zealand and you all know what happened there. White spectators invaded the grounds, they assaulted the players and broke up the matches. That is the feeling in the world about the question of Apartheid. I have never compromised on this issue in the past, and I will not do so in the future. If you look at national teams in the West Indies, Australia, England, India or Pakistan, most of you, who are professional cricketers, would know that 4 or 5 players comprise the core of a national team for 5-6 years. This core group must be protected from temptation, must be strengthened and must be nurtured during those few years. After all, all our efforts should be directed at finding eleven players of excellence to carry the national flag in the centre pitch.

I am very grateful to you all for the co-operation which you have extended to me in the past, and I am quite sure that the same co-operation will be extended to my successor. I gave the signals that I should move out two years ago, but I gave into some pressure and appeals made to me, that I should continue. This matter has now been decided.

I would like to make an appeal to those who represent the Sinhalese Sports Club. When the Cricket Board headquarters was to be established, the Tamil Union appealed to us that the headquarters should be located at the P. Sara Stadium. We were also encouraged by the Ministry of Sports at that time, that the Board of Control should also have its own grounds and buildings for its headquarters at the Racecourse. Those in the governing body of the SSC met me and the other members of the Board and prevailed upon us to locate our headquarters at the SSC. As the Minister of Lands, I had the right to demarcate this portion of land and hand it over, on my initiative, to the Board of Control. However, the SSC prevailed upon me not to do this, and requested that the Board use their land on payment of a nominal lease rent to the SSC, or share the lease rent the SSC pays to the Lands Commissioner. We have a gentleman's agreement to this effect. Now I am told that this part of the agreement seems to be forgotten, and the SSC is asking the Board to pay Rs. 10,000 a month as lease rent. I would kindly urge those gentlemen of the SSC to negotiate this, as gentlemen, to ensure that the Board of Control for Cricket maintains its headquarters in the same spirit in which they were invited to come here in the first place. This is the only issue that has to be resolved as I leave you today and I would urge that it is resolved on the basis of the gentleman's agreement.

I was very moved by the two minutes silence for Mr. Don Thomas who has been described as a small man with a big heart, who did an enormous amount of work for the Board of Control. We have in this hall stood in silence to pay tribute to many distinguished cricketers who have played a key role in the evolution of cricket in Sri Lanka. It occurred to me that whatever happens in the future, I will also have the consolation of such a tribute one day. It is a most endearing thought. It has been a great pleasure for me to work with you. We have done much together as friends; and worked together to preserve the traditions of one of the greatest games in the world.

I would like to wish my successor Mr. Ian Peiris the very best. I know he will succeed, as he said, in his own humble way. He is no great administrator, he is no great public figure, but he brings to the Board of Control a tradition of cricket. I take your farewell today, sustained in the knowledge that our cricket is in the hands of some of the finest men I have come to know in Sri Lanka.