Sports -

You can call it the time of the innocent or god’s own peaceful times. It was the era when the biggest ‘boom’ was a thunder clap or a child lighting a cracker on New Year’s Eve. At the same time ‘in the big boys’ world of cricket’, Sri Lanka or as we were called then ‘Ceylon’ was of unknown quality. Whistle stop cricket was the order of the day and if a visiting cricketer was too tired to play the ship’s butler would take his place! Amidst all this there was one thing going our way in cricket. It was a very solid foundation on which our School Cricket was built and our thanks go out to people like Angelo Rayer and his peers.

In that era Sri Lanka School cricket was either the best in the world or were second to none.

Now domiciled in Pakistan working as an English teacher Angelo at that time was one of the main cogs in the wheels of the then “Ceylon Schools Cricket Association”, where he served in different capacities. But his main vocation was teaching at St. Joseph’s College, Maradana where he was also acting as the Master-in-Charge of cricket. We started discussing about school cricket and how the system worked at that time. He gazed for awhile and teleported himself into that time zone. “For instance we had seven main first Xl fixtures which we used to play in the first term. Other than the big match against St,. Peter’s we used to play. St. Benedict’s, Trinity, St. Anthony’s, Wesley, S. Thomas’ and Royal. Then we also had third term engagements like with the two Moratuwa Schools – St. Sebastian’s and Prince of Wales, the two Galle Schools – Richmond and Mahinda, Dharmarajah, Thurstan and Isipatana played in the third term. Then as time went by we tried to bring some of these schools which had been playing with us for a long time into the first term. So in the aftermath St. Sebastian’s, Prince of Wales and Mahinda were brought in as first term fixtures. This move made our season a ten-match feature.

‘At the same time the upper age limit was fixed at 20 and then the next was under 16. We thought the gap was too big and we decided to bring the upper limit down to 19 so that the age groups would go as 13, 15, 17 and 19 instead of 12, 14, 16 and 20.

When asked about the standard of cricket played at that time in schools, Rayer said “As far as the standard was concerned we were the best in the world. There is no question about that, At that time we had an under-19 team that toured India. The selectors for that tour were myself. M.W. Karunananda from Ananda, then Mendis Nelson or Lionel from Nalanda, B.A. Mendis from Prince of Wales. One Mr. Fernando from St. Sebastian’s and a person from Wesley College whose name I cannot recall. This was in 1970-71. We had Mithra Wettimuny captaining the side and it had players of the calibre of Asitha Jayaweera, Jagath Fernando, Ananda Jayatilleke, Wendall Kelaart, Thalayasingham, Manik de S. Wijeratne, Rory Inman, Duleep Mendis and Ajith de Silva as I remember.

“I remember this boy Ajith de Silva who was discovered by our Schools’ Cricket Association, Ambalangoda. He was the only outstation cricketer to make the tour. When he came in to the scene we had F.C. de Saram coaching the side. The moment de Saram saw de Silva he said “This guy is a miracle bowler”. He was a nice quiet boy, and after the tour we all had a discussion and moved him to Ananda where the boy would fit in best”.

Angelo Rayer went on to explain that the Indian tour was the most successful junior tour that Sri Lanka undertook in the pre-Test era. During the tour they played five Tests of three days duration and three Zonal matches which were also played for the duration of three days. They drew one of the Zonal matches played up in Amritsar, and out of the five Test matches they drew three and won two to take the rubber. However the highlight of the tour he describes was the epic double hundred scored by Jagath Fernando, who was incidentally lost to cricket through his love for the game of rugby, and thus an injury sustained while engaged in the latter sport. “When we came back we knew our cricket at under-19 level had reached the top. Generally junior cricket in India is of a very high level and we had beaten them in all departments in this tour. Ironically at this time cricketers however good they may have been at school level, left the game sometimes for good to pursue their professional careers”.

According to Rayer in the aftermath of this tour Sri Lanka kept on churning out cricketers of stature on a very frequent basis. Out came cricketers of the calibre of Bandula Warnapura, Roy Dias, Sidath Wettimuny, Ranjan Madugalle, Rumesh Ratnayake, Ravi Ratnayake, Anura Ranasinghe, Arjuna Ranatunge and the list kept on unfolding till Sri Lanka gained Test status.

Then came my pivotal question; “How come from such a good base which we had in the pre-Test status era our schools system has come down to a level of losing to countries like Bangladesh on a regular basis?” Rayer answered “The people at that time derived a system that was suited to that era and out came the results, but where we have gone wrong is that we have tagged along with that very same system ever since while the other countries have derived systems which are more conducive to the present day needs of cricket. For instance if we could find a way of having a cluster school system where children from every cluster going into a zonal pool and these zonal pools are nurtured by junior cricket specialists to gear them according to the present needs, so that when they come to the senior level they will be good enough to fit in to the feeder points of the national grid.

“At present there are people who can come in and help change the system especially people like Arjuna Ranatunge -- down the line I have known Arjuna and I know that he has a vast knowledge on junior cricket and at the same time if the authorities can get people like Aravinda de Silva also to contribute their mite then we can put our junior cricket back on the road again” said Rayer in conclusion.

P.S. Sri Lanka Development Cricket ‘B’ team lost to Maldives by 31 runs at Bloomfield Grounds last Tuesday.