The Chesterfield Files

There are several clichés that can be used over comments regarding who was NOT on the list of the fifty local recipients for the International Cricket Council’s awards last Friday night.

As part of their centenary year, Yahaluweni the ICC are honouring former great Test players. The other groups, such as your genuine administrators and other servants of the game, make the list largely on the whim of an "appointed committee."

Which suggests that criteria used is arbitrary and in some cases misinformed, otherwise a former Ceylon captain, the now very much alive 89 year-old C. I. (Conroy Ievers) Gunasekara would have been on that list. Or just maybe, there is some problem within the "committee" over his name. Or maybe, just forgot who he is.

But if the ludicrous deceased and ‘living abroad’ principle is a guide, ICC would not have handed out centenary caps to family or relatives of Sir Donald Bradman, WG Grace, Harold Larwood, Colin Cowdrey (Lord Cowdrey of Tonbridge) and Sir Leonard Hutton. How idiotic would that have looked?

Likewise, to fail to honour C. I. Gunasekara and his uncle, C. H. (Churchill Hector) Gunasekara, recognised as the father of what was Ceylon cricket, as well as F. C. de Saram, Roy Dias and administrators, such as Gamini Dissanayake is not just a disgrace. It is snubbing history and poking in the eye the memory of hard work of those who put the country where it is today and created a legacy that made Sri Lanka cricket what it is. What a way to honour the forefathers of the game on the island!

Okay, C. H. Gunasekara and De Saram have gates named to honour their memory at the Sinhalese Sports Club in Maitland Place. This, however, is not the point. It is honouring those who have come before and who have been largely responsible for building the local traditions and folklore of the game which is needed.

For the committee to act subjectively by eschewing the efforts of former great players who have happened to pass on, or move abroad for coaching and work reasons, suggests they have a problem with how the game’s past history has been landscaped in this country. Or is this a political issue? 

By leaving C. I. Gunasekara off the list, is for a start an insult, just as it is not to honour S. S. Jayawickrama and the batting genius Mahadeva Sathasivam, who is probably revered more in India than in the island and is said to have been ranked alongside Don Bradman. Then, maybe those on the committee don’t care for traditions and history in their eagerness to honour those among the living who do deserve it, such as the ever-helpful Leo Wijesinghe of Nondescripts, always a good friend to visiting and local journalists.

At least the United Cricket Board did not snub Basil D’Oliveira when South Africa honoured their past great players at Newlands in the Millennium summer of 1999/2000, during the England tour. South African-born, but of the wrong colour, he had to turn to England in the 1960s in the depth of the discriminatory apartheid years to earn just rewards for his talents. But the UCB were not so petty to ignore how had the laws of the land been as they are in other countries, Baz would have played for South Africa with many of his brethren.

Anyway, when it comes to the electronic media, switching on these days to watch the third Test down the road at Sinhalese Sports Club against Pakistan, one of the voices less familiar to listeners is that of Australian-born Mike Haysman.

You can hear the softer South Australian vernacular as well: as it was with his silky middle-order batting skills, and later his style of captaincy, all of it accompanied with the flowing blond locks that gave the impression of being a Leonard Bernstein conducting the opening bars of Gustav Holst’s Mercury suite from The Planets. Maybe even Bernstein’s own classic ‘The Rumble’ from West Side Story, or even some rhythmic bars from the South African Hugh Makekela.

It explained his general tempo and batting nuances: quality without the showy embellishment you get with some at a time when South Africa was on the slow road towards the post-isolation era in which he also played his role.

He is the sort of entertaining former player who comes with the type of pedigree that makes you wonder why it took Taj Entertainment Network so long to sign him on. He is now the new face of TEN since Sanjay Manjrekar opted out and moved elsewhere.

Stan Nell, the former Sri Lanka A team coach talked about the first class debut of the man South Africans called ‘Haysie’. It was 126 against Queensland, followed later that summer with 153 against Victoria; a tall elegant right hander in the mould of Greg Chappell or Martin Kent, he would have played for Australia but for a calculated decision to join the Kim Hughes Rebels in South Africa between November 1985 and February 1987, and remained to live in the Highveld region.

"I don’t really think people know what Australia missed with his decision to return to South Africa after the Rebel tours and decide to play domestic cricket there instead of his home state," Nell says. "He was always technically good and earned a couple of Australian Youth ‘Test’ caps, so you would know from that he had a big future. The selectors would have thought so as well.

IIt was a big loss, but he had his own reasons and you have to accept why he decided to remain in South Africa,’ Nell added. "His commentary style tells you that he has made the transition between playing and media and that he is a hard-working professional."

If what Nell says is correct, he would have been a member of the Australian Test and limited-overs sides that did so well in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Even part of that 1987 World Cup winning squad at Eden Gardens and that is always worth thinking about when you check a player’s past for his credentials.

As a player, he turned out for what was then known as Northern Transvaal, scoring the de rigueur maiden century on debut (a limited-overs slog) in a side that at one stage contained Ray Jennings, Fanie de Villiers and Tertius Bosch. He quickly established himself and took over as captain in the tricky 1992-93 season, where his leadership role was appreciated at what was Centurion Park, now SuperSport Centurion.

It was cataclysmic season with India on the Friendship Tour as Test cricket making a return to South Africa with De Villiers and Bosch vying for Test and ODI caps and overlooked by the selectors headed by Peter Pollock. With others pressing for a place, ‘Haysie’ did what he could to give both temperamental swerve and seam bowlers a chance to impress the national selectors and nurse them through their temperamental moments of doubt.

As a player and captain, ‘Haysie’ was not one to hold anything that he felt was written in an unfavourable light, against the writer, if it was fair criticism. Unfair criticism was different.

He grumbled at me once during 1989-90 season, when batting at three in the Northerns side, felt a comment written about his innings in a particular game was not quite justified. The problem was that with computers and IT, newspaper editorial staff can take what they want, fiddle around with the story which is what the Pretoria News sister paper in Johannesburg, The Star did, by twisting the positive angle I had written. It made me look an idiot and Haysman wondering just who was I supporting.

Maybe he understood, maybe not, but on retirement he slipped into a TV anchor and programme role with SuperSport Television South Africa and began a cricket programme ‘The Inside Edge’ which at one stage he shared with Fanie de Villiers after the bowler, known as ‘Vinnige Fanie, (Fast Fanie) had retired.

It has been suggested that Mike is a touch controversial. Well, what is controversial and what is not? It is up to the viewer and listener (and reader) as he makes his comments and analyses the game being played, and says what he feels. It is the sort of job which often calls for straight talking (and straight writing for that matter), not soft platitudes where no criticism is offered.

When it blew the top off the game, Haysie handled the Hansie Cronje match-fixing events with a certain diplomacy noted by others and while appreciated by some, it was not always understood, especially in a country where Cronje’s image is still revered by some. One of the problems I always remember is how Cronje would not look you in the eye at a media conference when asked a question.

While the locks to an extent have gone, little else has changed. But the challenge is to run an operation as this with firm, professionalism: the crisp delivery has a soft, yet resonant tone and the image of Haysman as TEN’s front man is part of a modern media man’s journey. This includes glamorous wife Leanne involved in fashion and a coterie of Persian cats who first moved from Johannesburg to Miami and now Los Angeles.

It is hard to accept anyone involved so deeply in the game wanting to live Stateside where the game is seen as quaint and quintessentially British and on entering a bookshop don’t expect for find any on cricket. But work is work and from the time he made the transition from analysing bowlers and scoring runs to bringing a different voice to the game as a commentator and occasional writer, the decision to leave South Africa and friends behind does have its rewards.