by Rex Clementine  

We have been fortunate to witness some of the great fast bowlers on show in our shores in Test match cricket in the last 40 years. Sir Richard Hadlee, Dennis Lillee, Bob Willis, Kapil Dev, Allan Donald and Wasim Akram have all had their moments in our backyard, but no fast bowler has had the impact that Mitchell Starc had when Australia toured here in 2016. On tracks that were tailor-made for spin, Starc took 24 wickets in three Tests, the most by a fast bowler in a Test series in Sri Lanka. It was great to see the man who inspired many young aspiring Sri Lankan fast bowlers appealing to the world to support Sri Lankan communities that are severely affected by the economic crisis. He was joined by one of the modern day greats of the game – Steve Smith.

Australia’s role in supporting Sri Lankan cricket over the last four decades has been outstanding. The 9thMay attack on peaceful protestors at the Galle Face that triggered civil unrest across the nation put Australia’s six week tour of the island in serious doubt. But to the credit of Cricket Australia and the Australian government, they not only sent down the team, but stuck to the original schedule too although many suspected that Colombo’s games will be shifted to outstations.

Tickets to Colombo games on Tuesday and Wednesday went on sale last Saturday and were sold out by 2:30 pm same day, even to the surprise of SLC. Our country has gone through tough times bringing misery to the general public and it is cricket that brings them some solace. Now that Australia have come, there is certainty that the country will not face cricketing isolation and there’s hope for the Asia Cup taking place in August without being shifted to Dubai. That will be a shot in the arm for the economy with the epic India-Pakistan clash bringing fans across the world to Colombo to witness war without bullets.

Australia has been one of Sri Lankan cricket’s greatest allies. Our nation’s application for Test status had been turned down a few times and when Gamini Dissanayake wanted to put out a fresh bid in 1981, he invited Australian Cricket Board bosses Fred Bennett and David Richards for a tour of the island during which they visited and inspected various cricket facilities. Quite impressed by the standard of cricket in the country, particularly at the schools, Bennett assured Australia’s support for Sri Lanka’s bid. The veteran’s cricket acumen was pretty good having dedicated half a century of his life to the sport from the lowest levels at Balmain District to the highest echelons of Jolimont Street.

To show Australia’s solidarity to Sri Lanka’s bid, Kim Hughes’ side played an unofficial Test match in Colombo on their way to England for the 1981 Ashes.

At the ICC meeting in June 1981, Australia, one of the founding members of ICC with veto power, supported Sri Lanka’s bid. England by the way abstained from voting and Sri Lanka’s bid went through.

Once Sri Lanka were in the big league, the opportunities that Australia provided to help the nation develop into a strong force was immense. Local curators were trained down under by Arthur Mailey. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s several Sri Lankan teams played the World Series cricket better known as Benson & Hedges Series and these were welcome breaks. Australia also played a three match Test series against Sri Lanka, a decade before England did so.

Due to the civil unrest in Sri Lanka, there was little cricket played at home between 1987 to 1992. In early 1990s, the cricket board was headed by a Royal-Thomian combination of Ian Pieris and S. Skandakumar. It was to Australia this pair turned to to end Sri Lanka’s cricketing isolation and they readily agreed and Alan Border’s side visited in 1992 and the legend of Shane Warne was born. That paved the way for every cricketing nation to visit the island including West Indies and South Africa who made their inaugural visits to the country in 1993.

When ambitious Ana Punchihewa became the Board President in 1994, he launched a project where he wanted to make the country the best cricket playing nation by the year 2000. His first move was to hire a qualified foreign coach. He asked the Australian board for recommendations and was given several names with special emphasis on one Davenell Frederick Whatmore, the Head Coach of Victoria. Punchihewa grabbed the idea but soon got cold feet after realizing that the Sri Lankan board had a bank balance of Rs. 300,000. Whatmore was going to cost them US$ 100,000 annually.

Alan Crompton, who passed away in April this year was the Chairman of the Australian board at that point and he informed his Sri Lankan counterpart to hire Whatmore and Australia would sort his payment out. It was done subtly. Sri Lanka were set to tour Australia in 1995 and the guarantee fee for the tour had been set as US$ 100,000. The amount was doubled and an advance was paid resulting in Whatmore coming in. The rest as they say is history.

The excellent relationships were soured at one point in 2010 when Australia mooted the idea to nominate former Prime Minister John Howard as the Vice-President of the ICC. The plan was for Howard to go onto become the ICC President. It was a superb initiative as Howard was the most senior world figure ever considered for the role. But the Sri Lankan board put a spoke in the wheel crashing the move. The excuses that SLC were dishing out were lame ones. It is a well kept secret that our cricket bosses were merely a cat’s paw to the powerful BCCI, who feared a world figure at ICC like the plague.