The forgotten men

In an interview with a Daily Paper a few months ago, Abu Fuard had mentioned that dedicated personalities like Nisal Senaratne, Neil Perera, S.S. Perera, Shelley Wickremasinghe and a few others who had helped Sri Lanka Cricket in many ways are forgotten today. This is an understatement, and I would add a few others to this list. Raheman Hathy, Dennis Hapugala, S Pathmanathan and in more recent times S. Skandakumar are among the forgotten men. Abu Fuard himself, at best a controversial figure, who was not afraid to call ' a spade a spade ' sometimes at the wrong time and place, did yeomen service to Sri Lanka Cricket at a time when Cricket in this country was in the doldrums. I was the Hony. Secretary of the BCCSL during the period 1973 to 1976 when Robert Senanayake was the President.

It was during this time that the Pakistan team led by Intikab Alam and the West Indies team led by Clive Lloyd played several unofficial Test Matches and Limited Over Matches in SriLanka.The Inaugural Under 19 Tournament for the Ali Bhutto Trophy between Sri Lanka and Pakistan, The World Cup tournament in England and the Second Asian Cricket Conference held at the Hotel Oberoi in Sri Lanlka were among the other notable activities during this period.

The fact that the preparation and the organisation of the abovementioned activities in addition to Tournaments etc. were carried out without any Office or Office staff will reveal the tremendous amount of work that was carried out by a team of voluntary officials.My office was at home and the typing was done at home by my wife or the Typist in my office to whom I paid a monthly allowance of Rs 500 – from my pocket. I had the dubious honour of being appointed Manager and Abu Fuard Assistant Manager of a most rigorous six week Sri Lanka Tour of India in November 1975. The Team was captained by Anura Tennakoon. Believe it or not I received the princely sum of Rs 1000 and Abu received Rs 500 as the Manager and Assistant Manager respectively. As far as I can remember, the team members received Rs 50 each.

There were severe foreign exchange restrictions at that time and the personal allowance allowed to each person was Rs 250. Each person was permitted to carry 2kg of tea and 2kg of Cloves. These were items that could be converted into cash in India.

Englsih Bats
At that time India too had severe foreign exchange restrictions and there was a very high duty on foreign bats. Most of the Sri Lankan Cricketers took additional English bats which they converted to cash when they arrived in India. After arriving in India the entire travelling was by Train or Coach and sometimes the journey by train took more than 12 hours.

Half way through the tour both Abu and I exhausted our allowances on incidental expenses and with the permission of the Board we obtained another Rs 1000 from the the Hony Secretary of the Indian Cricket Board the former Test Cricketer Ghulam Ahmed a charming man who was always willing to help us in any difficulty and believe me we had innumerable difficulties with regard to accommodation, travel etc. I have related the above narration so that the present day Cricketers and Officials will recognize the trials and tribulations that we had to undergo to keep this game of Cricket alive during those difficult days. While reminiscence of the past I wish to recall with gratitude, the tremendous support given to Sri Lanka Cricket by one man who stood out like a beacon among an otherwise indifferent and sometimes hostile representatives of member Countries of the ICC. He was none other than Abdul Hafeez Kardar, who played for Oxford and later for India before the partition and captained Pakistan after the partition. He made a valiant attempt to obtain full membership for Sri Lanka at the ICC meeting held in 1975, having failed on several previous occasions. Both England and Australia had Veto powers to reject any application and they had successfully done this on previous occasions. When Kardar got up to propose Sri Lanka as a full member of the ICC there had been pindrop silence. (as narrated by Robert Senanayake ) as he had been harshly critical of the ICC on previous occasions when our application had been rejected. Having described the ample qualifications Sri Lanka possessed to qualify for election he chastised the ICC for having rejected their application on previous occasions. The bombshell to come at the end of his speech. He had thumped the table with his hand and has said “Gentlemen if you do not approve the application for Full Membership submitted by Sri Lanka , there is only one reason and that is none other than RACIAL DISCRIMINATION he had thundered. With this thunderbolt he had sat down to see that most of the white faces had become red.

Asian Cricket Council
Racial dicrimination it was, and the application of Sri Lanka was turned down yet again. The story of A.H.Kardar did not end there. An angry man he pioneered the formation of the Asian Cricket Council, which was formed to counter what he perceived as racial discrimination at the ICC. The first Asian Cricket Council meeting was held in Lahore where I was fortunate to attend. The second meeting was held at the Hotel Oberoi in Sri Lanka in 1974.The entire organisation for this meeting was done by S.S.Perera and me. At the conclusion of the meeting Mr Kardar asked me as to how we could assist Sri Lanka Cricket. At that time we had drawn up plans for Coaching but we lacked the expertise. When I mentioned this to Mr Kardar he offered to train three coaches in Pakistan under the guidance of the Pakistan National Coach Khan Mohamed. Soon afterwards Abu Fuard, A. Polonowita, and WAN Silva went to Pakistan for a stint of coaching and this set in motion the future coaching programmes conducted by the BCCSL..

As a further inducement to improve the standard of Cricket in Sri Lanka Mr Kardar arranged for an Under 19 Tounament between Sri Lanka and Pakistan.for the Ali Bhutto Trophy. (Ali Bhutto was the President of Pakistan at the time). The first match was played in Colombo in 1975 which was won by Sri Lanka mainly due to the efforts of of Ranjan Madugalle the Off Spinner who took 7 wickets in the Pakistan second Innings. What happened to Madugalle's Off Spin thereafter is a mystery.

The two Teams were captained by Anura Ranasinghe and Javed Miandad. The present generation of Cricketers and Officials would have hardly heard of the immense contribution made by this great man. Sri Lanka Cricket should revere his memory in some tangible form and show its gratitude.

Apart from showing its gratitude to a foreigner, what gratitude has it shown the former Officials who slaved for the BCCSL in a forgotten era? Even when a International Match is played in Sri Lanka, these men don't get even a decent seat to witness the matches. Another sordid story is that only the past Presidents some of whom were deadweights get the Kudos while the Officials who had to bear the brunt of the work load are forgotten men. I hope Sri Lanka Cricket will show some gratitude to the forgotten Officials of a most difficult past era.