Bowled over by cricket from a young age
Shammi Silva, President of SL Cricket hands over the award to Gwen Herat
The rare honour of a Lifetime Achievement Award was made to Gwen Herat at the Under 19 School Cricket Awards 2023 held on October 17. Having played a pivotal role in encouraging women’s cricket in the early days, Gwen was there at the birth of the Women’s Cricket Association of Sri Lanka under the Board of Control for Cricket, and worked to get full membership with the International Women’s Cricket Council (IWCC) based in New Zealand.
In her home in Borella, far away from the greenery of Nattandiya where she learnt to bowl and field near her father’s estate with the village children, Gwen has a lot to say about her passion for the sport.
Having learnt by watching the boys play, Gwen joined the fray and has a chipped tooth till this day as evidence – when a boy dealt her a heavy punch during a match.
From then on it was quite a journey for the planter’s daughter. Curiously, “there were no cricketers in the family,”, though one brother “did play for a spell in London”, but Gwen almost unwittingly, came to be somewhat like the female counterpart of Gamini Dissanayake (who was one of those instrumental in winning Test status for men’s cricket).
She began as the President of the Puttalam District Cricket Association but Gamini was to propel her to do more.
Even after stepping down, she “fought tooth and nail at the International Women’s Cricket Council in 2005 in Pretoria for Sri Lanka to achieve ICC status which she did with all countries voting in her favour,” says sports journalist Sunil Fernandopulle.
After gaining international status for the women cricketers, she was to resist the pressure for the team to come under the Ministry of Sports, and the IWCC was to stand firmly by her side, refuting two official requests by the Ministry to annul her association.
Gwen then invited former Sri Lanka cricketer Guy de Alwis to groom her young cricketers for the 1997 World Cup in India, where with just three months’ training they made quite a few countries bite the dust, reaching the sixth position, which they held for a long time.
Gwen took the girls to all cricket-playing countries and invited their teams over.
“Many sponsors rallied around her for funds came easily with Singer Sri Lanka becoming their national sponsor for the World Cups as well for overseas tours.”
She recalls her late husband Harold Herat, a former Minister of Justice and also Foreign Affairs, lent a ready hand and encouraged her. Among her generous acts was to gift a two and half acre playground in memory of her husband to the St. Pius Sports Club of Nattandiya and also a ground to St. Joseph Vaz College, Wennapuwa.
She has long relinquished the other pastimes she enjoyed – as dancer (‘never professional- my father would have killed me!’), gardener, writer, musician and actress, which many remember her for and says firmly, “now just write about the cricket if at all” for that was her governing passion she still wants to promote – for the country’s sake.
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