Features

DON BRADMAN AND HIS MEN IN CEYLON

Published

4 years ago

2020/12/20

Sahan Weerasooriya

(“From Essays on Sri Lankan Cricket compiled by Michael Roberts”)

by Neville Jayaweera

The image of Don Bradman exercised almost a mesmeric hold over the imagination of my generation, i.e. of those born in the 1930s, in (then) Ceylon. The dominion he exercised was so absolute that even now, 60 something years on, most of that generation would claim that there never was and never will be anyone like the Don taking guard at a batting crease. Speaking for myself, having watched cricket in England during the past 30 summers that I have been living here, I can vouch that no batsman I have seen ever came nigh Bradman. Neither in run getting nor in amassing statistics, neither in the capacity to concentrate nor in the fleetness of foot, neither in the murderous power of driving and pulling nor in the single minded devotion to the pursuit of perfection, and least of all, as a captain, did any batsman challenge Bradman.

In all these and in much else besides, he remains unique and without a peer. During those 30 years, I have watched every great batsman who played Test cricket in any part of the world, put his batting prowess on display on England’s green fields, and none amongst them can even remotely claim to have played the same game as Don Bradman. The only batsman who even hovered over the horizon was perhaps Viv Richards, and that too in his heyday in the late 1970s tours, but even him, on a scale of 100, where Bradman would be graded at 95, I would rate only in the 60s.

However, while much is very rightly made of Bradman the batting genius, there are two other aspects to the Bradman phenomenon, which discerning critics have written about and to which I shall return towards the end of this article.

A Michaelangelo masterpiece.

I first heard the name of Don Bradman about 1937 when I was only seven, and attending the Lower School of S.. Thomas College, Mt. Lavinia. Every boy in class collected cricket photographs and every young collector’s ambition was to boast of the largest number of Bradman pictures in his collection. There were two pictures of Bradman that every boy wanted to possess, one of him executing the straight drive and the other of him executing his fabled pull shot.

As I recall even now, the picture of him executing the straight drive had almost a mystical quality about it and it was not just the quality of the photography either. It presented the Don almost as a demi-god. What was distinctive about that picture was the sense of imperious authority, fluency and power it communicated. One could imagine the ball speeding like a rocket between the bowler and mid-off and lodging in the fence before either fielder could move. Here was no mere batsman. Here was a man who seemed in total command, a be-medalled field-marshal on horseback, a demi-god condescending to grace a cricket field.

The picture of him playing the pull was equally mesmeric. It showed him shouldering his bat vertically close to his let ear, having carved a crescent through the air from above his right shoulder downwards as opposed to the hoik or cross bat which often passes for the pull with ordinary mortals. Obviously J. H. Fingleton, one time Bradman’s partner in run scoring and later his biographer, must have been equally impressed by this photograph because he used it on the front cover of his book, “Brightly Fades the Don.”

For all the symmetry, perfection and poise these two pictures portrayed, they could have passed for masterpieces in marble sculptured by a Michaelangelo or a Rodin or to switch to another metaphor, the cricketing equivalents of Yehudi Menuhin displaying his virtuosity.

A family heirloom

With such fantasies of the great man crowding our minds, it was with the greatest excitement and wonderment that early in 1938, we learnt that Don Bradman and his team would be passing through Colombo on their way to England and would be playing a one day match on the SSC ground. To my inexpressible joy, my father, who was himself a fan of Don Bradman, agreed to take my brother Stanley, who was eleven then, and me, to see the great Don arrive with his men at the Colombo jetty. What was more, my father even purchased a brand new bat from Diana and Co. for my brother to take with him, in the hope of getting the Don’s autograph.

I recall the events of that hot steamy morning as if they happened only a few years ago. We were not allowed into the lower jetty where passengers disembarked from launches but had to watch over the railing as the team arrived. As the players climbed up from the lower jetty to the upper floor where the public had gathered, the crowd surged forward. My brother Stanley, with me trailing behind, his new bat in his left hand and my father’s Parker Dufold pen in the other, went to the first Aussie he saw and thinking he was Bradman, thrust the bat under him with a polite, ” Please sir, may I have you autograph”. Whereupon the Aussie smiled, took the bat and scrawled right across its middle, ” Sydney G. Barnes”. Somewhat disappointed that he had missed the Don, Stanley took the bat to the next man in a blazer coat and he in turn signed, a few spaces above the name of Barnes, his own name, “Stan MacCabe”. Thereafter, hoping to get Bradman, Stanley kept running to whoever was wearing an Aussie blazer and was rewarded with the following signatures, Lindsay Hassett, W.A Brown, J.H.Fingleton, W. J. O’Rielly, W.G Fleetwood Smith, C. L. Badcock, B.A.Barnett, E.L McCormick, A. G. Chipperfield, F.A.Ward and M.G.Waite, more or less in that order. Sadly, there was yet no signature of Bradman. By that time the team had already climbed into their cars to be driven to the Galle Face Hotel, when my father spied policemen crowding round one particular car right opposite the Grand Oriental Hotel across the road. Sensing that Bradman was in that car he urged my brother to hurry towards it, which Stanley did with great speed, with me trotting along behind him. Just when the car was about to start off Stanley thrust his bat under the nose of yet another Aussie who was standing with his foot on the running board. He turned out to be W.E. Geanes, the manager of the team. Geanes signed at the bottom, under all the other names, but noticing that Bradman himself had not signed it, inquired smilingly, ” Son, but you haven’t got Mr Bradman’s (sic) signature” and handed the bat to the great man who was already seated in the car. Up to that moment, at the request of the management, the police cordon around Bradman had denied access to anyone who sought his autograph. So it was that purely through the chance intervention of manager W.E. Geanes that we had all the signatures of the 1938 Australian team to England, with the great Don Bradman and his vice-captain Stan McCabe, heading the list.

My father intended the bat to be an heirloom. So it was that, taking it home that evening, with great care he inscribed across it, just under the splice, the rubric “Australian Cricket Team to England – 29th March 1938.” The bat belonged to Stanley and had he held on to it, it would have fetched over £25,000 at Sotheby’s today. However, that was not to be, and as to how Stanley squandered that inheritance is another story.

Batting fireworks

The following day, the 30th of March, the Australians played a one-day match against an All-Ceylon team at the SSC. The SSC ground of those days is now the Colombo Municipality cricket ground, which by the standards of MCG and SCG must have looked to the visitors like a postage stamp. Although Bradman had played once before in Colombo in 1930 and had scored 40 runs, he did not play in this match and it was memorable therefore only for the extraordinary display of batting fireworks by Badcock and Hassett who compiled 116 runs apiece. Their runs came mostly in sixes and fours, most of the sixes being executed almost parallel to the ground, either between point and cover or between square leg and mid-wicket.

The match was also memorable because schoolboy Pat McCarthy, the captain of Royal College team that year, was included in the All-Ceylon team, much to the chagrin of us Thomians who fumed over the exclusion of our own captain R.B. Wijesinha. In hindsight I should say that the Thomians’ dismay was completely ill founded because Wijesinha’s performance that year had nothing to show to that of McCarthy. However, in later years Wijesinha did represent All-Ceylon in several international matches. I do not recall who captained All-Ceylon that year but the names of F.C. de Saram, one time Oxford Blue, and Sargo Jayawickrema, dominated the sports pages of those times, day in day out, year after year. According to the score card of the match given in Michael Roberts’ Crosscurrents, de Saram had scored 31 runs and in reply to an Aussie total of 367 for 9 declared, compiled by tea, Ceylon replied with 114 for 7 by stumps, with de Saram the highest scorer and Pat McCarthy scoring 24. I believe that in later years Pat McCarthy migrated to Australia and played for West Australia.

The next time I had the opportunity to see Don Bradman was in 1948 when he lead his famous Invincibles to England and himself played in Colombo. We had already had a taste of what was in store for us because three years earlier we had seen two of the Invincibles, Keith Miller and Lindsay Hassett, belt the daylights out of our bowlers when an Australian Services X1 played an All- Ceylon team at the Colombo Oval in November 1945. I recall a six that Miller hit, went soaring over long-off and almost knocked out the clock on the brand new Oval scoreboard. In that match Miller scored 132 runs and Hassett 57.

The Invincibles

The 1948 Australian team’s reputation had already been established during the 1946/47 Ashes tour down under. Australia had won four of the five Tests with one Test drawn and Bradman had made 187 in the First Test and 234 in the Second, winding up the series with an average of 90 something. Furthermore, several of the new team had also compiled centuries, among them, Sydney Barnes, Arthur Morris, Keith Miller, Lindsay Hassett, Sam Loxton, Ian Johnson, Ernie Toshack, the spinner, Don Tallon, the wicket keeper and Ray Lindwall, the fast bowler. Almost every member of the team a centurion was indeed a formidable record. However the deterioration of his fibrositis, which had plagued Bradman throughout the war years and had caused him to be invalided out of the army, had continued to hamper him and reduce him to a mere shadow of what he had been in the thirties. While Bradman’s appetite for runs had not abated and his instinct for excellence and perfection remained undiminished, most observers had begun to notice a definite waning of his skills and an impairment of felicity at the crease. We were to see it confirmed at the Colombo Oval on March 28, 1948.

That day in March 1948 I remember vividly. I was 18 then and could undertake the expedition to the Colombo Oval without being escorted by my father! In those days, if one did not have a car, there being no bus service to Borella from Colombo South, access to the Oval was very difficult. So it was that, dismounting from the train at Bamabalpitiya, I walked all the way to the Oval along Bullers Rd, a distance of over three miles. The roads were choked with the young and the old streaming towards the cricket ground. By the time I reached the grounds, the paid stands and the standing spaces were all full and the police were turning the public away. Not being adroit enough to climb a tree, as thousands of others seemed to be, I crept through the barbed wire fence and found myself about twenty rows behind the boundary line. Very soon, all that was reversed when a mass of people broke down the fences, overran the police cordon and surged forward, carrying me with them. By the time the police had restored a semblance of order I found myself seated on the ground, this time not twenty paces behind the boundary line but about six paces inside it, at the edge of a sea of people, and the game had not even started! The tension and the excitement was terrific and some spectators amused themselves by pelting my hat with banana skins and calling me “ado thoppi karaya” (Hey, you hatter!), a small price to pay for watching Bradman!

The sky was already overcast when sharp at ten, M. Sathasivam, captain of Ceylon and the Don walked out to toss. The toss was a formality because whoever won it, the Aussies were meant to bat. So it was that at 10.15, Sydney Barnes and W.A.Brown went out to open the innings. For a description of the day’s play I have had the advantage of two eyewitness accounts, from the Observer and from the Times, the latter written by J.H. Fingleton, and included in Michael Roberts’ splendid book Crosscurrents.

The Australian innings was notable for five things. First there were the breezy innings by Barnes and Miller the former scoring 49 in as many balls and the latter scoring 46 in even a shorter time, with some mighty hits all over the ground. Second there was the excellent bowling by Sathi Coomaraswamy who got four wickets for 45 runs and by B.R.Heyn who kept the batsmen pinned down with some accurate off spin. Thirdly, there was the stunningly good fielding display put on by our men in the field, which drew rounds of applause from the crowd of over 25,000. In particular the fielding of Heyn in the covers was quite exceptional. Fourthly, there was the magical display behind the stumps by our keeper Ben Navaratne, and finally, there was the distressingly disappointing batting display put on by the great Bradman.

Embers that went cold

Everyone had come to see Bradman bat and as he walked out to the crease after the fall of the first wicket the atmosphere was electric. We all expected that Bradman’s arrival at the crease would be like throwing inflammable stuff on embers that had been smouldering while Barnes and Brown were at the crease. Sadly however, that was not to be. If anything, the embers went cold and died. For over an hour and a half Bradman scratched and scraped, pushed to cover or point and ran singles. There was none of that legendary pulling or any of the ferocious driving that we had all come to see and in all that time, he scored not a single boundary. This was a ghost of the Bradman we had read about, a legend drained of all credibility. Just only an year and a half back, we had sat enthralled by our short wave radio sets listening to the great man compile 187 at the Gabba and 248 at the MCG, his driving and pulling resounding like rifle shots as the ball sped in all directions to the boundary, every shot accompanied by thunderous applause. It was partly the deadly accuracy of our bowlers, principally of Coomaraswamy and Heyn and partly Bradman’s sea legs, and not least his fibrositis, which were perhaps to blame.

While Bradman was batting, an eerie silence had settled around the ground. There were no scoring shots to cheer and it was as if the crowd was waiting with bated breath for Bradman to ignite and did not want to miss the critical moment. I recall distinctly, amidst this tensed and overpowering silence, a spectator unable to suffer the tension any longer, chimed in, in Sinhala, “Oi, Bradman! What is the karanawa?” (I say! Bradman! What is the problem?) As the cry rippled across the ground, the nervous tension snapped, and the crowd burst out laughing as if to a man.

Shortly thereafter, when Bradman was on 20, he spooned an easy catch to Kretser at point, off Heyn. Normally, anyone taking Bradman’s wicket would be applauded for extraordinary skill and rare excellence, but that was not to be here at the Colombo Oval that morning. The fall of Bradman’s wicket seemed to have cast a deathly pall over the ground and the darkening clouds overhead seemed to suggest that even the heavens had gone into mourning. In the enveloping silence, as the great man walked off the ground, there was a distinctly funereal touch to the atmosphere, and as hundreds of silent spectators flooded over the field to see him at close quarters, play had to be suspended for 10 minutes until order and sanity were restored again .

At tea, with the sky darkening with rain, Bradman declared their innings at 184 for four. When Ceylon went in to bat, the rain was already falling but it held long enough for Mahes Rodrigo, formerly of Royal College, to give the crowd a display of classical batting that was every bit as good as anything the Aussies had put on show. So much so that Fingleton singled him out for special mention for smart footwork and for his straight bat. When the score was 46 for 2, the rain came down in torrents and that was the end of the match.

Fingleton in his review says that the Ceylon team played much better cricket than the Indian team that had toured Australia the previous summer. It had included Amarnath (captain), Hazare, and Mankad, but lost all their Tests. In particular, he thought that our fielding was quite exceptional and exceeded anything the Indians had put on. Sadly however, he failed to mention in his review the wicket keeping by Ben Navaratne who was in my view the most outstanding of the Ceylon team. I thought his work behind the stumps was quite remarkable.

(To be continued next week)

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Features

Could Trump be King in a Parliamentary System?

Published

4 hours ago

2025/03/16

Thilina Walpola

by Rajan Philips

Donald Trump is sucking almost all of the world’s political oxygen. Daily he is stealing the headline thunder in all of the western media. The coverage in other countries may not be as extensive but would still be significant. There is universal curiosity over the systemic chaos that Trump is unleashing in America. There is also the no less universal apprehension about what Trump’s disruptive tariffs will do to the lives of people in reciprocal countries. There are legitimate fears of a madman-made recession not only in America but in all the countries of the world. There is even a warning from a respected source of a potential repeat of the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The question of this article obviously shows its Sri Lankan bias. For there is no country in the world that has been so much preoccupied, for so long, on so constitutional a matter – as the pros and cons of a parliamentary system as opposed to a presidential system. And only in Sri Lanka will such a question – whether Trump could be a king in a parliamentary system – makes sense or find some resonance, any resonance. Insofar as the current NPP government is committed to reverting back to its old parliamentary system from the current presidential system, the government could use all Trump and his presidential antics as one of the justifications for the long awaited constitutional change.

A Historical Irony

It is not that every presidential system is inherently prone to being turned into an upstart monarchy. The historical irony here is that America’s founding fathers decided on a presidential system at a time when there was no constitutional model or prototype available in the world. In fact, the American system became the world’s first constitutional prototype. The founding fathers had all the experiential reason to be wary of the parliamentary system in England because it was associated with the King who was reviled in the colonies. Yet the founding fathers were alert to the risks involved. James Maddison reminded that “If men were angels, no government would be necessary;” and John Adams warned that man’s “Avarice, Ambition, Revenge or Gallantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net.”

But for over 200 years, no American president tried to break the country’s political constitutional system for reasons of avarice, anger and revenge, as Trump is doing now. Presidents in other countries with far less traditions of checks and balances have been dealt with both politically and legally for their excesses and trespasses. In Brazil, the system was turned against both the current President Lula and his previous successor Dilma Rousseff. In between them, Jair Bolsonaro imitated Trump in Brazil and even tried to launch a coup after his re-election defeat in 2022, emulating Trump’s insurrection in Washington, in January 2021. But in Brazil, Bolsonaro has been accused of and charged for his crime, while in America its Supreme Court let Trump walk away with immunity and to be back as president for another round.

In Philippines, the current government of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has turned over its former President Rodrigo Duterte to stand trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, on charges of crimes against humanity for his allegedly ordering the killing of as many as 30,000 people as part of his campaign against drug users and dealers. In Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa tried to be king, unsuccessfully sought a third term, and set up the system for family succession. But the people have spurned the Rajapaksas and questions as to whether they have been given undue protection from prosecution keep swirling. To wit, the contentious Al Jazeera interview of former President Ranil Wickremesinghe.

In the US, Trump is nonstick and remains untouched. Unlike the prime minister in a parliamentary system, an American president has no presence in the legislature except for the ceremonial State of the Union address. And unlike no other president before him, Trump has created the theatre of daily press conferences, rather chats, before an increasingly hand picked group of journalists. There he turns lies into ex cathedra pronouncements, and signs executive orders like a king issuing edicts. No one questions him instantly, his base hears what he wants them to hear, and by the time professional fact checkers come up with their red lines, Trump and his followers have moved on to another topic. This has become the daily parody of the Trump second term.

No prime minister in any parliament can get away with this nonsense. Every contentious statement will be instantly challenged and refuted if necessary. Parliamentary question periods are the pulse of the political order especially in crisis times. After being in the House of Commons gallery during a visit to England, President Richard Nixon was astonished at the barrage of questions that Prime Minister Harold Wilson had to face and provide answers to. These are minor differences that are hardly noticed in normal times. But the Trump presidency is magnifying even the minor shortcomings of a major political system.

Trump’s cabinet is another instance where the American system is falling apart. The President’s cabinet in America is based on unelected officials approved by the Senate. Until cabinet secretaries or ministers have generally been well equipped academics or professionals and were selected by successive presidents based on their known political leanings. Their ties to corporate America were well known but that was always somewhat qualified by the clear motivation to excel by providing exceptional service to the country.

Trump’s second term cabinet comprises a cabal of self-serving ‘yes’ men with no stellar background in the academia or the professions. They are all there to do Trump’s bidding and to disrupt the orderly functioning of government. Their ineffectiveness is now daily manifested in the drama over Trump’s decisions on tariffs which vary by the time of day and his mood of the moment. The reciprocal countries do not know what to expect, but they have learnt that any agreement that they reach with Trump’s ministers means nothing and that there will be nothing certain until Trump makes his next announcement.

Americans, and others, will have to go through this for the next four years, but in a parliamentary system there could be quicker remedies. A prime minister cannot erratically hold on to power for a full term, and as British parliamentary experience has recurrently shown prime ministers are brought down by cabinet ministers when they have outlived their usefulness to the government and the country. There is no such recourse available in the US. The device of impeachment is simply inoperable in a divided legislature and Trump has demonstrated this twice in one term.

Growing Pushback

Yet after the initial weeks of shock and awe, push-back to Trump is now growing and is slowly becoming significant. Within America the resistance is mostly in the courts, especially the lower federal courts, where the judges are ordering against the stoppage of USAID contract payments, the manifestly illegal firing of government employees, indiscriminate accessing of government data by Musk and his DOGE boys, and the barring by executive order of a law firm that had once represented Hillary Clinton from doing business with the federal government.

Also, in the highly watched case against the deportation order served on the Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian with Green Card status and married to a fellow Palestinian who is a US citizen, the courts have ordered the government to stop the deportation process until the case is resolved. Mr. Khalil was a prominent leader of the student protests at Columbia against the Israeli devastation of Gaza, and the District Judge ordering the temporary ban on deportation is Jesse Furman, an exceptionally qualified American Jew who was appointed by President Obama and was once touted as a potential Supreme Court judge.

The wider push-back is mostly overseas and is predicated on retaliatory tariffs by countries that Trump is imposing tariffs against. In different ways and for different reasons, China and Canada are aggressively pushing back. Mexico is resorting to both flattery and firmness. And the EU is launching a systematic response. Other countries will be forced into the fray if Trump lives up to imposing the much anticipated reciprocal tariffs against all countries that now charge tariffs on imports from the US.

Even without tariffs their uncertainty has been enough to roil markets with stock indices plunging dramatically from the heights reached soon after the November election and the much promised regime of monumental tax cuts. One of the worst stock slumps has been that of Elon Musk’s Tesla. In what is being considered to be the worst such slide in the history of the auto industry, Tesla has lost all of the 90% increase in value it achieved after the presidential election and now gone lower than its pre-election value. Between December 2024 and March 2025, Tesla’s dollar worth fell from $1.54 trillion to $777 billion, a near 50% drop.

Tesla’s misfortune is a schadenfreude moment for those who abhor Musk for his political trespasses. Political aversion is certainly a factor in Tesla’s misfortunes and declining sales, but materially not the main one. Other factors that are more significant are issues with the brand products and stiff EV competition from China. But political distractions catch the eye, and protesters have been turning up at the Tesla dealers in the US. Trump called them the lunatic left and to boost his buddy’s products he even stage managed a sales pitch for Tesla vehicles at the White House driveway. And this is after executively rescinding all of Biden’s initiatives to boost the production and use of Electric Vehicles. What better way to make America great again?

Fighting Oligarchy

Political commentaries in the West are preoccupied with speculations over how, when and where all of Trump’s orders and initiatives will impact people’s lives and their politics in America. One comforting constant is the presidential term limit that will stop Trump’s presidency in January 2029, although Trump will never stop musing about a third term in office. Just like annexing Canada, purchasing Greenland and expropriating Gaza. Mercifully, he has not made any claim to immortality.

The elusive variable is the response of the people. So far, Trump has been able to maintain his hold over his base and he is pulling a tight leash on the Republicans in Congress to toe the line given their narrow margins in both the House and the Senate. The base is indicating support to all his madman initiatives even though Trump has fallen back to his usual negative approval rating (more people disapprove than approve of him) in popular opinion polls. What is not clear is when the public will turn on the president if he actually imposes tariffs on consumer goods, keeps firing government employees, and keeps eroding social welfare.

Trump won the election promising to bring down the prices and cost of living instantly, but everything he is doing now is driving up the costs and people will start registering their dissatisfaction. Unlike in Britain there is no tradition to cheer the monarch and damn the government. Sooner or later, Americans will have nothing to cheer their king for, but everything to damn him, because this ersatz king is also their government.

There are scattered protests in many parts of America, with people showing up at local town hall meetings organized by Republican congressmen. But the protest against the deportation of Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil is likely to gather traction and is already drawing a spectrum of supporters including progressive Jewish and other American citizens. A Jewish organization called Jewish Voice for Peace has organized a sit in protest in support of Khalil in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York. Other high rise buildings may be targeted.

More resoundingly, Senator Bernie Sanders has launched a national tour for “Fighting Oligarchy” and drew a crowd of ten thousand people at his first stop in Michigan. The tour will be a teaser to the Democratic Party leadership that is currently stuck in its tracks like a hare caught in Trump’s headlights. The Party is going by the calendar and waiting for its turn at the next mid-term elections in 2026, and the full election year in 2028 to elect the next president. The old campaign heavyweight James Carville has publicly advised the party to “play dead” until Trump’s systemic chaos turns the people against the Administration. Not everyone is prepared to be so patient.

New York Congress woman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) is not prepared to “completely roll over and give up on protecting the Constitution.” She wants immediate and consistent opposition to Trump and not to play the waiting game according to the electoral calendar. Trump for one does not wait for anything and breaks every rule to advance his indeterminate agenda. Among the Democrats, AOC has the most extensive social media base, and many Democrats are encouraging her to take the next step and announce her candidacy for New York’s Senate seat. She is a shrewd politician and is well positioned to open another front against Trump, paralleling the national tour that Bernie Sanders has launched.

Features

The Royal-Thomian and its Timeless Charm

Published

4 hours ago

2025/03/16

Thilina Walpola

The spirit of the Royal-Thomian. Centurions both, Rehan and Maneth-Pic by Hiran Weerakkody

By Anura Gunasekera

Big matches come and go; today they are numerous but the Royal-Thomian, the first of its kind in this country, stands apart as an eternal metaphor for tradition, style, charm, excitement and unpredictability. No other sporting encounter in the country, not even an international event, generates the passionate rivalry, the limitless appeal, the widespread social enthusiasm, the Bacchic revelry or the fervent anticipation, as does the battle between these two tribes. This writer does not mean any offence to other schools or to other sporting encounters, but does not see the need to entertain a dissenting view.

The match ceased to be a mere sporting event many decades ago. It has become a microcosm of the passage of life, mirroring the broader human experience. Over the decades it has shaped a generational continuity, with a new group stepping in to continue the tradition, an honoured legacy, as one generation exits. It fosters growth and change, whilst remaining anchored to a revered tradition rooted, albeit, in a colonial past. As much as individuals inherit legacies, values and expectations from their families and communities, the match has fostered a tradition which has remained a constant for one-and-a-half centuries.

The fact that its original spirit is still very much alive, despite the social and national changes which have evolved around it, and that its founding concept has been embraced and emulated by so many other schools, is testament to its relevance to life today, notwithstanding its antiquity, and its genesis in a British-imposed elitism and exclusivity- the latter an accusation frequently levelled against the event and the institutions which generate it. The Sri Lanka of today is unrecognizably different from the colonial Ceylon which birthed the Royal-Thomian, but that encounter remains the same, as it was 146 years ago. The actors, the locations , the institutions and the scope of the event have changed, but the founding spirit is untouched.

This iconic encounter has come to symbolize healthy competition, nourishing rivalry, the value of determination, preparation and team-work and the will-to-win, but all within an inviolable framework of fair play and sportsmanship. It respects history whilst enriching it with each successive encounter, finding ways, through exceptional individual and team performances , to contribute to and enhance an ongoing fable. It fosters a sense of belonging and pride, not just for individuals but for the larger community. It is no longer the exclusive property of the Royal-Thomian tribesmen but has embraced a massive extended family of supporters, aficionados, enthusiasts and well-wishers. It has become an inclusive feast.

The encounter teaches that despite differences and challenges, unity and collaboration from both competing parties are essential for success and growth. As in life, for both teams there is immense pressure to perform and to succeed in what is a high-stakes encounter, to meet the expectations of a society which has grown around it, and formed special identities linked to the competition- family, school, culture and country.

The match, in essence, is a cauldron which shapes triumph and failure, the joy of victory and the anguish of defeat, and the ability to accept both with grace and equanimity, coupled with the determination to make amends at the next encounter. It reflects the eternal truths of the human experience, that life is not always kind, that nature is not always fair, that despite your best efforts the other side will sometimes do better, even if it is not the best equipped or the more fancied. To use a highly over-used cliché, ” the race is not always to the swift”, and cricket proves it time and time again.

The 146th edition of this celebrated encounter reflected, in a multitude of ways, all the contradictions and commonalities described above.

STC, after winning the toss, sent Royal, the pre-match favourites, in to bat, on what appeared to be a typically friendly and placid SSC wicket. After an initial stutter which seemed to justify a risky decision by STC, Royal settled down and went on to post an imposing 319/7. Rehan Pieris crafted a majestic 158, watched reflectively, from the comfort of the “Mustangs” enclosure, by Ronald Reid, a batting genius of a different era, who compiled the identical score for STC in 1956. In doing so he erased the previous Royal-Thomian batting record of 151 by Norman Siebel of STC, established in 1936.

The writer, who, as a ten year old Thomian watched the Reid enterprise, can now claim the privilege of having seen two brilliant performances, separated from each other by a distance of 69 years; the quality in both so similar, despite the first being an elegant left-hander and the recent edition from an aggressive right-hander, that it was like being in a time-warp.

STC, undeterred by the mountain of runs confronting them, produced a decent response of their own. Dineth Goonewardene, with an excellent century- the first by a Thomian since 2016- scored at a brisk rate, made a major contribution. Royal, in their second essay , seemed very much in control with all features pointing to a comfortable draw, when the unpredictability of cricket reared its menacing head; out of the humid and burning-hot ether, Darien Diego, bowling a steady, but unthreatening line and length all afternoon, suddenly produced the feared hat-trick; according to statisticians only the third by a Thomian in the history of the series. Royal, perhaps compelled, and perhaps slightly befuddled, by the unexpected reversal of fortune, made what was a challenging but sporting declaration, throwing down the gauntlet, as it were.

The target of 233 in 42 overs was daunting but given some measured adventurism, not unattainable. STC did exactly that, achieving it with an over to spare. Jaden Amaraweera and Mithila Charles provided early stability at the top with calculated but quick accumulation and Sadev Soysa, in the middle, with a short but fiery knock, reduced a demanding run-rate to manageable proportions.

One outstanding feature of the Thomian victory was the nerveless batting of 15 year old newcomer, Reshon Solomon, a somewhat disputed inclusion in the team, at the expense of coloursman Abeeth Paranawidana. Solomon, despite having had only two previous outings and both in friendly matches, justified his selection for the big stage with a brilliant half-century, scored alongside the first innings centurion, Goonewardane, matching the latter shot-for-shot. The pair batted with such composure that a seemingly elusive target soon became a certainty.

Irrespective of the reasons which prompted it, the early declaration by Royal made a decision possible. One must not forget that losing three batsmen in three deliveries and with two wickets left, they could have, quite justifiably, opted for the safer option of batting till the end and closing down the game. Royal obviously declared with a different result in mind but cricket is capricious, which is also a feature of its allure.

This writer first attended the Royal-Thomian in 1955, and has witnessed all the matches since, barring a brief hiatus in the early 19-seventies. Memories of individual matches, however exciting, are now vague though, the details lost in the fog of excessive merriment, generated in exclusive but boisterous enclosures like the “Colts”, “Stallions” and, latterly, the more sedate “Mustangs”. However, one Thomian victory which still remains indelible in memory is that of 1964, when STC, under the late Premalal Goonesekera, clinched victory in a nail-biting finish, providing a decision after ten consecutive drawn matches ( ’54-’63). That match is also remembered for Sarath Seneviratne’s brilliant 96, breaking Thomian hearts by falling short of a century, a tragedy he re-enacted in the very next Royal-Thomian as well, losing his wicket at 97. In a parody of fame, Sarath is recalled more often by Thomians for the centuries that he failed to score, than are other batsmen who actually did.

The 2025 Thomian victory too will similarly remain in the writer’s memory, for the much shorter lease of life now left to him. But more than the Thomian win, which will eventually become a statistic, the unforgettable feature of the game was the generous spirit, the fierce but fair competition, and the genuine respect which the competitors displayed towards each other. Those are life-lessons, far more important than the end-result, for all to take away, emulate and cherish.

Features

Oscars recognizing talent, overlooking skin colour and racial origins

Published

4 hours ago

2025/03/16

Thilina Walpola

The 97^th Academy Awards ceremony presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), took place on March 2 at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, LA. A total 23 awards popularly named Oscars were presented to selected actors and films of those released in 2024. Doubt existed about holding the ceremony live or on-line since forest fires were into Hollywood itself and calling for stars to vacate their homes.

An article on Merle Oberon sent me finding facts about a notion I had that the Academy came in for criticism as being racist; only white stars were nominated for awards ignoring Black Americans and actors of other races like Indian. In the early years of Hollywood, actors who had foreign blood flowing in their arteries hid this fact assiduously. If even suspected, they would be suspended from stardom.

Merle Oberon (1911-1979, born Estella Merle O’Brian Thompson) was an acclaimed star in Hollywood from 1934, starting her acting career in silent films and moving on with great effort and painstaking training to look like and speak like an American. She used bleach heavily to lighten her skin. After her origins were known, she was recognized as Hollywood’s first South Asian star. Sri Lanka or rather Ceylon has a claim here, since Merle’s grandmother was born in Ceylon, a Burgher, it is said.

Charlotte Selby, born in Ceylon, moved to Bombay and married an Anglo-Irish tea plantation foreman. Her daughter, Constance Selby, was raped by her stepfather, the foreman, when just 14 and gave birth to a child – Merle – who was brought up by her grandmother Charlotte Selby. Her biological mother was to the world her older sister. When the child was three, the family moved to Calcutta. There Merle won a scholarship to an upper grade private school.

It was known she was of mixed racial birth – an Anglo-Indian – looked down upon by both the British and Indians. Merle was unhappy and took refuge in watching movies. In 1939, an English jockey she was in a relationship with, offered her the opportunity to migrate to England; thus on the pretext of being married to him, Merle moved to London. There she met Hungarian film person Alexander Korda, who promoted her entry into acting. She married him later.

A rising star, she moved to the US in 1934. Samuel Goldwyn spotted and promoted her.

She was nominated for an Oscar the next year for her stellar role in The Dark Angel but lost to Bette Davies. The racial prejudice was worse in Hollywood than in Britain, so Merle had to be extra watchful and diligent in hiding her South Asian origins. Apart from central government rules against immigration and bias against migrants, Hollywood followed the Hays Code which declared inter-racial marriage, sex as crimes. Merle invented she was born in Tasmania and thus untainted white.

Doubts and rumours surfaced about her non-whiteness in spite of her face appearing white with heavy bleaching; her learning to speak Americanese and cameras specially designed to film her which showed her skin to be fairer, she felt under threat until conditions eased. The truth about her parents was revealed publicly with the publication of Charles Higham and Roy Moseley’s 1983 biography Princess Merle. Earlier when her nephew, Samuel Korda,

wanted to write her biography, she threatened to sue him and cut him out of her will. She died of a stroke at age 68 with her secret not publicly punctured.

All white Oscars invaded by colour

Even after the likes of Merle Oberon, racial prejudice was severe. The first coloured actor to win an Oscar was Hattie McDaniel for her portrayal of the loyal nanny in the O’Hara family who tightened daughter Scarlett’s corset strings to near-non-breathing tightness in the 1940 film Gone with the Wind. There was uproar and objection to an African American, then called Black, winning an Academy Award alongside Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable.

McDaniel was a singer and film and theatre actor who suffered intense racial discrimination throughout her career. Atlanta held the premier of the film since its author Margaret Mitchel lived and wrote in Atlanta. Hattie was debarred from attending the all-white premier. At the Oscars ceremony in LA, she had to sit at a segregated table at the side of the room. She gave her reason for suffering these indignities: “I can be a maid for $7 a week. Or I can play a maid for $700 a week.”

She faced discrimination even within the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) whose leader, Walter Francis White, looked down on her and other actors as “Playing the clown before the camera.” However it did force Hollywood to give more opportunities to African Americans in film roles. More help was given, probably, by outstanding stars of the likes of Sydney Poitier.

In 2016, after another all-white set of acting nominations, the #OscarsSoWhite protest movement gained global attention. Yet, the next two years also saw all Oscars being awarded to white actors. Things improved after that: more non-whites winning acting awards but also for other sections like Best Director. Mira Nair was nominated for her direction of the films Namesake and Mississippi Masala and won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film Salaam Bombay in 1989.

Non-White stars

Plenty in this category and increasing. I will however write about two of them.

Sir Ben Kingsley

was born in Snainton near Scarborough in Yorkshire to a Gujerati father from Jamnagar and an English mother, in 1943, and named Krishna Pandit Bhanji. Within five decades of his acting career he received accolades and awards including Oscars, Bafta, Golden Globe, Grammy and Primetime Emmy. He won one Academy Award and was nominated for three more and the Britannia Award in 2013. He was honoured by the Queen by being appointed Knight Bachelor in 2002 for his service to the British film industry.

Kingsley began his acting career by joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1967 and continued in it for the next 15 years. The year he joined he acted in As You Like It and subsequently acted in many Shakespeare plays He was also into television roles.

The role he is best known for is Mahatma Gandhi in Richard Attenborough’s feature film Gandhi (1982). Those who saw it were suitably stunned by the close resemblance between the real Gandhi and Ben Kingsley portraying him. What I remember best are the actor’s eyes, deep and shiny showing great kindness, humility and determination too.

The film won eight Oscars including Best Actor; Best Director, Best Picture, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume Design and Best Screenplay. It was also named by the British Film Institute the 34^th greatest British film in the 20^th century.

Incidentally the highest number of Oscars won in a year – 11 – are shared by three films: Ben Hur 1959; The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King 2003; Titanic 1997. West Side Story 1961 won ten Oscars. Two films won nine each: The Last Emperor 1987 and The English Patient 1996. Five films that won eight Oscars each are Slumdog Millionniare, My Fair Lady, Gandhi, From Here to Eternity, Cabaret.

Moving to the now, I include among Indian stars who have made their mark worldwide – Frieda Selena Pinto. Born in 1984 to Catholic parents from Mangalore, Karnataka, she was raised in Mumbai and schooled at St Xaviers’. Her mother was the principal of a school in West Mumbai and her father a senior branch manager for the Bank of Vadga in Bandra, West Bengal. Frieda was determined from a young age to be an actor. She turned model for two and a half years and appeared in many TV ads for products like Wrigley’s Chewing Gum. Promoted to Television producer, she visited many countries. Then she got the boost she needed to fulfill her dream: acting. She was selected to play the female lead role in the 2008 production of Slumdog Millionaire opposite Dev Patel who was selected in Britain as he was already in films. Slumdog … was directed by Danny Boyle and filmed in India, much of it in the Juhu slums which is its backdrop. It swept the awards board: Oscar, Bafta et al.

In 2020 Frieda starred as Usha Bala Chilakuri, Stanford law student and special girl friend of JD Vance, the film being about his life until he enters politics. I watched Hillbilly Elegy (2020), much about the Vice President’s mother’s battle with addiction to drugs and was struck by how closely Frieda resembled the young Mrs Vance; notwithstanding film make-up. Frieda is still very much in films, seeking roles in both Hollywood and Bollywood.