The learning curve

Do you know that there was an era when Sri Lanka was not an automatic choice at the world cup and either they were either invited by ones grace or else they had to fight it out with the other minnows in the cricketing world to get their rightful place? We are about to tread on a story which unfolded thirty two years ago when the entire cricketing world knew very little about limited overs cricket and what an impact that it would finally have on the game.

From the world’s first limited overs game that was played in England between two leading counties in 1962, the global cricket hierarchy was intrigued by this new phenomena and in 1975 launched the inaugural Prudential Cricket World Cup tournament to be played in England From June 7 to 21 with eight teams taking part. The participating teams were: Group ‘A’ England, India, New Zealand and East Africa (consisting players from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda) Group ‘B’ Australia, West Indies, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. However Sri Lanka and East Africa were the only teams invited to take part at this event, as the rest of the pack mentioned above were the only full members of the International Cricket Conference.

To get Sri Lanka’s version of this excursion the Sunday Musings met up with none other than the man who led our team to that epoch making event – Anura Tennekoon who is still considered as a master artist in the craft of batting, and thus born in the right place, but in the wrong era. However Tennekoon now a high ranking official of the Sri Lanka Cricket itself unfolded the story “The inaugural World Cup was a revolution as far the whole cricketing world was concerned and every cricket playing country was looking forward too it. As Sri Lankans and not being full members of the World of Cricket it was a real bonus for us and at the same time we were awaiting the arrival of this event with a lot of eagerness. Nevertheless at this time Limited Overs cricket which was only introduced a few years prior to that was completely new to us and we were not accustomed in playing against foreign teams on a regular basis at that time. So our exposure was very limited. At that time there was very little limited overs cricket played even locally. From that point we could have considered our selves as novices to the limited overs game”.

Then explaining the team composition Anura explained “I led the side with Michael Tissera as my deputy. Then in the order of batting we had Sunil Wettimuny and Bandula Warnapura to open batting with wicket keeper batsman Ranjith Fernando as the third opener. Then there were David Hyen, Duleep Mendis along with a youngster just out of school in Anura Ranasinghe. Then there were the all rounder sorts in D.S. de Silva who was more a right arm leg spinner who also could bat and Tony Opatha, Mevan Peiris, Ajith de Silva, Lalith Kaluperuma and also medium pacer Dennis Chanmugam. We arrived in England about two weeks ahead of the tournament and we had to contend with some matches against some clubs as we did not have any prepretory games”.

When asked how the Lankan team felt at the inauguration of the World Cup showdown , Anura somewhat surprised us. His crisp answer was “There was no showdown as such, first it was that we were invited to meet the queen at the Buckingham Palace which was followed by a cocktail party.”

Then he explained how things progressed for Sri Lanka in earnest “Our first game was against the West Indies up in Manchester at Old Trafford, This proved to be a though game for as in Manchester it is cooler and wetter than most of the other parts of England. Besides this it also happened to be the adopted home ground of the West Indian captain Clive Lloyd -- Lancashire. When we went in there was a lot of grass on the wicket and it made tough work facing the battery of fast bowlers that the West Indians had. Unfortunately we also lost the toss and were put into bat and we found it extremely difficult to cope with the moving ball on that wicket and were all out for something like 82 runs.”

Then the former Sri Lanka Cricket captain explained about how it was playing against the Test playing Nations for the first time on their own terms “We looked at it as an opportunity and a learning curve. No one there expected us to go out there and beat the giants in conditions foreign to us and with the limited experiences we had had with this form of the game.”

“The second game was against Australia at the Surrey Oval. Here the conditions were quite suitable for us as it was sunny and warm. Even the wicket was a good track without much grass. I can not remember who won the toss, but I think we won the toss and put Australia into bat. It was 60 overs-a-side cricket at that time. Australia with their powerful batting lineup scored something like 320 runs for loss of six wickets. This score was largely due to the lack of exposure that we had in this version of the game at that time and we just did not know how to contain them.

“However when it came to our turn we did very well and chasing 320 runs was not going to be easy anyway, so we told ourselves that we will give it a try. In this game Sunil Wettimuny and Ranjith Fernando opened the innings and they gave us a good start by putting on 40 or 50 runs in fairly good time. That gave us a lot of impetus to go on and at one stage we were even ahead of the asking rate. However at this stage Duleep Mendis was floored by Jeff Thompson and a while later Sunil Wettimuny was also hit on the in-step by the same bowler. Then when Michael and I took over our stay at the crease we could not keep up to the same momentum and we also finished our quote of overs at 270 for 4 against that attack and in the aftermath the English newspapers were full of praise for the determination and courage that we showed in that game.

Group B: Australia v Sri Lanka at The Oval - June 11, 1975
Australia won by 52 runs. Australia 328-5 (60 overs); Sri Lanka 276-4 (60 overs)
“However the next game was an anti-climax. We did not do well at all against Pakistan at Tent bridge. We went into that game without the services of Wettimuny and Duleep Mendis. In this game Pakistan scored over two hundred and fifty runs and we only could make 140 or 150 runs.

“After all this we really learned what limited overs cricket was all about and we also had the opportunity of watching the inaugural World Cup final between the West Indies and Australia which was a memorable game at all counts. And upon our return to the island we kept on improving on what we learned out there”.