The Legend of Pradeep Mathew (33 page)

Danila is wearing a T-shirt and a cap and her smile looks dowdy.

‘How? How? What happened with the documentary?’

‘ITL won the case. They might recut it and re-screen it.’

She avoids my eye and speaks directly with Ari. ‘I heard Rakwana is writing a novel.’

My blood freezes. ‘About what?’

‘About Rakwana. What else?’

There is awkwardness as two men who loathe each other smile for the public. Sri Lanka coast to 260 in the 40th with de Silva still at the crease. The journalists and cricket execs keep one eye on the match and one eye on the chatting titans beside us.

‘I was telling them about your good friend Mr Pradeep Mathew.’

Right then de Silva is caught by Harbhajan off Agarkar and no one notices the look that Jayantha Punchipala gives Danila.

When they have left, Uvais whispers, ‘That bitch has been with half the cricket team. Now she’s being kept by the man who thinks he can be king.’

‘Was she friendly with Mathew?’ asks Ari.

‘No one was friendly with Mathew …’

Then Upul Chandana falls to Kumble, then Dharmasena is foxed by Prasad. 20 runs from the finish line, the perahera of departing batsmen begins.

I have since read Uvais Amalean’s
Mr Average.
It is the sourest bunch of grapes ever turned into print. Each chapter offers excuses as to why Amalean didn’t play more than eleven tests. He uses formulae that baffle even Ari to show that if his best seven innings are considered, he would be the third greatest left-hander in the game.

It is halfway through the badly proofread text that I realise the title
Mr Average
is not a statement of modesty, but one of intent. He is not saying, as most of us believed, that he was an average player. He is saying that he is the Emperor of Averages.

He analyses each of Sri Lanka’s wicketkeepers and gives them points for batting and keeping. Specialist keepers like Navaratne, Goonetilaka and de Alwis score poorly on batting. Kalu, Silva and Kuruppu score modestly on keeping. When all these averages are tabulated and put through an index, Sri Lanka’s greatest wicketkeeper-batsman turns out to be, surprise, surprise, Uvais Ahmed Amalean.

That is only chapter three. The book is also highly critical of four tour managers, three selection committees and one captain. Why would he release this tirade while running for office? Perhaps he is running on misplaced idealism. Hoping that the establishment would favour the end of corruption. Not knowing that the end of corruption would be the end of the establishment.

Before the game goes to the wire, Uvais shares many interesting things. He tells us that seniors who earn hundreds of thousands of dollars cannot help but look down upon juniors who pocket rupee salaries.

He tells us that racism exists everywhere. Once he had tried to put his daughter into a prominent Colombo convent and was told that the Rs 15,000 entrance fee was only for Catholics. Buddhists had to pay 50,000, Muslims 100,000.

He tells us that he once accepted a lakh from a man in a bar to break the stumps seven times during a Sharjah game. ‘I didn’t think anything wrong. I didn’t have to play badly. Just flick the bails.’ Amalean gleefully broke the stumps every tenth over when receiving a throw and then, off the bowling of Wijesuriya and Jeganathan, he affected a couple of bogus stumpings. In the penultimate over, Fairbrother went for a suicidal run and was stranded by Tufnell. Amalean received the throw and hesitated.

‘I had already done it seven times. But how not to run him out?’

On returning to the pavilion, instead of a cash reward, Amalean received a call blasting him in raw filth. ‘Couldn’t understand if it was Afrikaans or Urdu.’

That was the last time Uvais Amalean ever received a call from a bookie, though he says players were approached all the time.

‘You’re in a bar. A rich fan offers to buy you a drink. You can’t be not polite. Next thing they send you a gold watch. Next thing they invite you to a party. Treat you like a friend. Then you get a call, asking to break the stumps seven times. How to say no?’

He tells us that Zimbabwean Anton Rose scored exactly 36 in 11 of his 21 innings. He once scored 40 against England and then followed it up with a 32.

‘But I don’t think Rose was fixed. I think the number 36 followed him around. Sometimes Allah controls the game.’

He scored 144 and 72 against Sri Lanka in 1994, putting Mathew, in particular, to the sword. Both numbers are multiples of 36. He followed those with six consecutive ducks, was dropped from the side and never played again. His average sits for all eternity at 36.00. Ari is more fascinated by this than me.

Uvais does not tell us why Mathew disappeared. Why he was never given a game on his final tour, despite scintillating domestic performances. Though he does tell us about Pradeep’s role in the dressing room. Ignored by senior players, Mathew befriended the reserves and the juniors. As time went on, he became a senior outcast, a spokesman for the meek.

‘The foreign coaches were correcting Sanath’s technique. Backlift too high, too much wrist. Trying to mould him into a classical opener. Suddenly in a team meeting, Pradeep blasted all the coaches and the seniors.’

Mathew suggested that the young left-hander be allowed to play his natural game, to hit over the top. The seniors expelled Mathew from the meeting; the foreign coaches ignored him. But luckily, the batsman in question did not.

‘Everyone claims to have invented the Sanath–Kalu combination,’ says Uvais. ‘Pradeep suggested it during the ’94 New Zealand tour.’ Uvais lowers his voice. ‘This is for your ears only, I will deny it if you repeat it.’

He tells us of a young off-spinner from Kandy who was asked to change his action by management. ‘We all thought he chucked. Only Pradeep, who was the most senior spinner by then, said the action was not illegal.’

Mahanama, our last recognised batsman, departs, and in waddles Charith Silva, recently recalled to the side and victim of India’s nuclear eruption earlier in the game.

‘Pradeep wrote a letter to the captain and the coach. ‘If you let this boy bowl, he will be the greatest bowler of all time. If you change his action, he will be another forgotten Tamil bowler.’

Charith Silva is run out without facing a ball, Sri Lanka falls short by 6 runs and the crowd hoots. Unlike our subcontinental brothers, we do not throw bottles or light fires. We save our barbarism for the north and the east. We join the disappointed throng to the car park. I repeat Uvais’s whispers to Ari and Jonny. Neither of them believes me.

Six months later, Jayantha Punchipala is elected SLBCC president in a landslide. Uvais Amalean scores less than a third of his batting average and receives 8 per cent of the vote. Two months later, the president, under investigation for corruption, is forced to resign and another interim committee is appointed on the eve of the 1999 World Cup.
Mr Average
sells out its first print run, but is never reprinted.

‘I was in the VIP section,’ says I.E. Kugarajah. The way he says it – as one would say ‘I had eggs for breakfast’ – it doesn’t sound like a boast. ‘I remember when the Minister ran down to save the match.’

We are on our second drink (non-alcoholic for me, of course) and I am still uncertain whether the person attached to the moustache before me is a friend or a foe. Kuga is delighted to hear I am writing a book.

‘A book on Pradeepan? That is a pukka idea.’

‘Is he really dead?’

‘According to the family.’

‘According to you?’

‘I can’t say.’

‘I have a certificate from …’

‘The fat sister? You also got that photocopy?’

‘Why would the family lie?’

‘Because they’re afraid.’

For a thug there is something delicate about the way he caresses his glass, like a saxophone player looking for notes. The way his eyes linger on your face. The way he pauses after each sentence to consider what has been said.

‘That letter was a forgery. I have people in Melbourne.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Friends. How much money do you need to finish the book?’

‘It’s a book, Mr Kugarajah. Not a documentary. It costs only time.’

Kuga presses the video machine and out pops what looks like a giant roti made from stainless steel.

‘What is that?’

‘Recordable Laser Disc. Soon this will replace cassettes and CDs.’

What about spools, I think. He inserts another silver disk and manhandles a remote control the size of Ari’s phone. It is my Sathasivam documentary. One which, as far as I know, aired only once.

‘My friend next door copied this for me. He also likes your programmes.’

‘Who is he?’

‘Rohana Vindana Kumara. Pirate king of Sri Lanka. You don’t know him.’

‘Why am I here, sir?’

While the Sathasivam documentary plays without sound, my host pours a third drink and lights a seventh Gold Leaf. My rumbling stomach tells me it is past lunchtime. The afternoon sun streams through closed windows and warms the room. Kuga turns up the air conditioner and doesn’t answer my question.

‘You will stay for lunch, I got some wild boar from Amparai. Selva is making …’

‘I’m not supposed to have oily food.’

‘Not oily. Juicy. Like those ones in
Asterix.’

He laughs.

After the annulling of the Asgiriya test, I.E. Kugarajah invited Pradeep Mathew to dinner at the Citadel in Kandy. The tour had been abandoned, so the youngster was off duty.

‘Why were you in the VIP stand?’

He jerks his head to the side, there is the crack of a bone. I wince, he smiles.

‘Questions, questions. Bloody journalists. I was doing business with the Minister of Cricket. Will you let me tell?’

I put down my glass and pull out my notebook.

‘Of course, this is for your book. You will not mention me.’

‘Of course.’

At the post-game cocktails, no one was talking about the match or the pitch. The Minister had seen to it that no awkward questions were posed and as a result the evening was awkward. I remember the New Zealanders sharing beers with the Sri Lankans. I remember Rex Palipane arguing with Ari about the ethnic problem. I do not remember seeing the unofficial Man of the Match among the circles of chattering players. Kuga had found him sulking by the lobby TV.

‘I told him “Great bowling, brother,” but no answer,’ says my host. ‘Then I said the same in Sinhalese.’

It was only when Kuga spoke in Tamil that he received the flicker of an eyebrow. It was in this language that Kuga suggested they leave the party. Mathew easily received permission from the manager to be excused. It’s hard to pretend a match doesn’t exist when the record breaker himself is in plain view.

At the Citadel, the boy grew talkative. He said he had taught himself to bowl a lot of those deliveries, but that his school coach had also helped. He said he was not angry about the match being cancelled, but was disappointed that the tour was over. He said he hated playing for Sri Lanka.

Selva announces that lunch is ready. During this shuffling of feet, I look around and notice the bookcase behind me. It is adorned with curved carvings. At eye level are cheap thrillers by rich writers. Jack Higgins, Frederick Forsyth and Ed McBain’s
87th Precinct.
There is a
Collected Works
of Shakespeare and Salman Rushdie’s
Midnight’s Children.
Standard issue in most Sri Lankan bourgeois homes and, more often than not, unread beyond page 7.

The rest of the shelves have books about Sri Lanka’s racial problems and Tamil history.

‘I told him it is hard enough being a Tamil in Sri Lanka, let alone in the cricket team,’ says Kuga as we make our way to the balcony. ‘I told him that our brothers Sridharan Jeganathan and Vinodhan John suffered the same prejudice.’

‘What prejudice? They both had their chances.’

‘Vinodhan John Jeyerajasingam couldn’t make the side even after changing his name. Jeggie died in 1996. Just forty-four, the first Lankan test player to die.’

‘As if Sri Lankan cricket killed him.’

‘The president and the Minister kept him out of the side. He turned to drink. That is probably what killed him.’

The food is served on a marble table and unsurprisingly in this idyllic neighbourhood, there are no crows swooping down from the power poles. There are no power poles.

‘You are working for the LTTE?’ I ask as we sit down.

There is a stirring of menace as he reaches for the wild boar curry. ‘You think just because I care about being Tamil, I am an LTTE-er.’

Selva decorates my plate with cloud-like clumps of basmati rice.

‘What about Mahadevan Sathasivam?’ I ask.

‘What about?’

‘He was even given to captain the side.’

‘And what happened? Thrown in jail on trumped up …’

‘Are you sure he didn’t kill his wife?’

‘What are you saying? Satha went around town with his Lankan wife and his English BYT. Wife knew everything. But the Sinhalayas were jealous. Satha could out-bat them and out-screw them!’

This man would have barely been an infant when Satha was out screwing.

I was a cub reporter on parliament duty. Those were the days of the Chelvanayagam debates. Do minorities get 50 per cent or do they get nothing? We Sinhalese knew the Tamils could out-bat, out-screw, out-think, out-everything us. So we gave them nothing. And made some of them hate all of us.

Pradeep Mathew’s Tamil was better than expected. He told Kuga of how the Sinhalese mob had nearly turned his father’s bakery to cinders in ‘83. How his family was pressuring him to give up cricket and enter the business. How his coach had advised him to drop Sivanathan from his name if he wanted to play for Sri Lanka.

‘That’s nonsense,’ I say. ‘Look at Chanmugam, Kasipillai, Schaffter, Pathmanathan, and of course, Muralitharan.’

‘That is what you all say,’ says Kuga, slapping an extra dollop of dhal on his curry-stained rice. ‘Murali. Murali. You elevate a few Tamils for your pleasure and then you destroy them.’

We return to the living room and I gather my satchel and my notes. I ask to borrow the laser discs, but Kuga refuses.