Revatha S. Silva in his article titled "Togetherness" that appeared in The Island of the 21st May, has correctly illustrated the theme of unity that has prevailed among different communities of the country through the game of cricket. What enhances this theme further is the living example of the Tamil Union 1st Division team having a majority of members from the Sinhalese community.

I can remember, in 1974 when Mr. Robert Senanayake was the President and I was the Honorary Secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket, I accompanied three of the best cricket coaches at that time namely Abu Fuard, Anuruddha Polonovita and W.A.N. Silva for a coaching assignment of the Under- 19 schoolboys in Jaffna. I can well remember the tremendous reception we received from the Principals of the Schools, the Coaches and well-wishers, on our arrival in Jaffna.

Cricketers of several schools in Jaffna including St. Patrick’s, St. John’s, Jaffna Hindu College etc. were represented at this coaching camp. This coaching camp was an instant success and several cricketers were selected for further coaching in Colombo. I must mention here, that the three coaches were only provided free transport, board and lodging. No other allowances were paid to them.

I have mentioned this coaching camp that was held 35 years ago in order to rekindle Sri Lanka Cricket to repeat this exercise in a much bigger scale as they now have the funds to do so. I would suggest that at the completion of the coaching camp in Jaffna, the SLC should select a group of about 20 Cricketers from this group for further training in Colombo. This should be followed with a few matches against combined teams from the lesser known schools in the outstations as initial matches with teams from the Colombo schools could be a mismatch. This could be followed up at a later date with matches to be played between Jaffna district schools, Anuradhapura district schools, Kandy district schools etc.

I have been Manager of several Sri Lankan Cricket teams that comprised of all the major communities and religions and I can vouch for the fact that camaraderie that prevailed among the players was of the highest order. This is a lesson that must be instilled at least now at school level. The Tamils no doubt have their grievances and unfortunately the younger generation of Tamils particularly in Jaffna and the Tamil diaspora have been brainwashed to hate the Sinhalese. This was very evident from what I saw on BBC television a few days ago, after Prabhakaran was killed, when two expatriate teenage girls on being interviewed by the BBC stated that what was going on in Sri Lanka was ethnic cleansing. Over one million Tamils are living in the south in perfect harmony with us and must negate the myth that there is ethnic cleansing in this country