by Rex Clementine

Every cricket fan remembers that Angelo Mathews was Sri Lanka’s captain when Australia were whitewashed 3-0 in the Test series of 2016. Most will also remember Graham Ford, the master tactician, was Head Coach. But hardly anyone remembers the curator.

Perhaps they are not expected to. Curators rarely make headlines. Yet the truth remains that Godfrey Dabare produced the surfaces tailor made for Rangana Herath to weave his magic and the rest, as they say, is history.

Godfrey breathed his last on Tuesday morning after a brief illness. He was 62.

He had no degree in science or agriculture, qualifications that have become almost mandatory for chief curators these days. His university was the cricket field. His knowledge came from countless hours spent under the sun, studying soil, grass, weather and wickets, learning the craft the old fashioned way.

It is a little known fact that Godfrey spent three months in Galle preparing the venue ahead of its inaugural Test in 1998. He did a similar job in Dambulla before it became an international venue in 2001. He was a loyal lieutenant of former board chief Thilanga Sumathipala and both, Galle and Dambulla, were Thilanga’s treasured projects.

I first met Godfrey in 2000 when he was managing Chilaw Marians, then a club playing Division Three cricket. Within two years, the Marians had climbed into First Class cricket and soon became a thorn in the flesh of many fashionable Colombo clubs.

Did Godfrey occasionally use his influence as national curator to prepare pitches that suited his club? Of course he did. He was no paragon of virtue. But neither was he the villain some tried to paint him as.

He would often complain that he would unearth a rare gem from the beaches of Marawila or Wennappuwa, nurture him and give him a platform, only for one of the posh Colombo clubs to come along and pinch the player. Godfrey took those raids personally. And he was determined to teach them a lesson.

Above everything else, he cared deeply about his players.

Without his tireless work, Chilaw Marians would hardly have survived nearly three decades of First Class cricket. Now that he is gone, you cannot help but fear for the future of the club he built with such devotion, a club that has produced many fine cricketers, the latest being fast bowler Asitha Fernando.

Godfrey also had a soft spot for the press.

When England toured Sri Lanka in 2021, Sri Lanka Cricket kept journalists out of the grounds because of COVID restrictions. The press were not prepared to take it lying down, so several reporters climbed Galle Fort and covered the Tests from there.

That did not go down particularly well with SLC. The issue eventually reached Parliament, where there was rare cross party agreement that journalists should be allowed into the venue.

Relations between the cricket establishment and the press were frosty, to put it mildly. What those running the show did not know was that Godfrey was quietly sending food and drinks from inside the ground to the journalists perched on Galle Fort.

That was Godfrey.

His finest hour, however, came during the Asia Cup in 2023.

The tournament had been battered by bad weather and the ground staff worked around the clock, often in miserable conditions, to keep it moving. At the end of the tournament, the Asian Cricket Council recognised their extraordinary efforts by awarding the ground staff US$50,000. Godfrey received the cheque from ACC President Jay Shah.

Soon, murmurs began doing the rounds in Colombo. Would all that money actually reach the men who had sweated for it? There were plenty who had their doubts given the questions surrounding SLC’s financial management.

Godfrey made sure there could be no such suspicion.

Every groundsman received an equal share. Godfrey documented the payments, complete with bank and contact details of the recipients, and then, twisting the knife just a little, shared the information with the press.

He was an honest man, although often a misunderstood one.

There was another episode that summed up both Godfrey’s character and the world he occasionally had to navigate.

During a game at the R. Premadasa Stadium, the visiting team’s dressing room door had been smashed with brute force. Nobody quite knew what had happened.

When journalists rang Godfrey, he gave us chapter and verse. Bangladesh star Shakib Al Hasan, furious over an umpiring decision, had taken a bat to the dressing room door. Godfrey said he had CCTV footage and eyewitnesses to back up the claim.

The press went to town.

Shakib was summoned by the Match Referee and a suspension appeared to be looming.

Then, suddenly, Godfrey’s phone went silent.

The following day Shakib escaped with a slap on the wrist. There was apparently insufficient evidence.

A few weeks later, while journalists were watching Sri Lanka train at the R. Premadasa Stadium, Godfrey wandered over, put an arm around me and said: “Sorry, Rex. Bangladesh Cricket Board wanted the matter settled amicably. They agreed to pay for the damage. Board President (go figure who it was), called me and told me to delete the CCTV recording.”

That was Godfrey too.

Loyal to his friends. Loyal to his bosses. Sometimes caught between the two.

Sri Lankan cricket has lost one of those colourful characters who operated away from the television cameras but whose fingerprints were all over the game. Players came and went, administrators fought their battles and coaches collected the applause, but Godfrey was there in the background, preparing the stage on which they performed.

He will be missed.

His remains lie at his residence in Kurukulawa, Ragama. The burial will take place on Thursday in his hometown of Chilaw.