The Legend of Pradeep Mathew (2 page)

I ask myself this right after my bath and my morning tea. My tea is taken milk-less with three teaspoons of sugar and five tablespoons of Old Reserve. As you will soon see, I take arrack with a lot of things.

So when did Pradeep Mathew stop being just another Lankan spinner of the 1980s? When did he become something worth obsessing over? A cause I would champion? To answer that I will take you to a boxing match between two men in dinner jackets. One was my dearest friend; the other, my oldest enemy.

The word wicket can refer to the three stumps that the bowler attempts to hit. ‘The ball almost hit the wicket there.’

The surface they are playing on. ‘The Eden Gardens wicket is dry and difficult to bat on.’

The bowler’s performance. ‘Laker’s taken 7 wickets in this match so far.’

The batting line-up’s mortality. ‘South Africa lose 5 quick wickets.’ Its versatility is bettered only by a four-letter word that serves as noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and expletive.

The simplest dismissal is when the bowler knocks over the batsman’s wickets. Mathew did this with most of his victims. He sent left-arm chinamen, googlies, armballs and darters through pads and feet. Here is a not-so-random sample of batsmen whose bails he dislodged. Border. Chappell. Crowe. Gatting. Gavaskar. Gower. Greenidge. Hadlee. Imran. Kapil. Lloyd. Miandad.

You are shaking your head. You are closing the book and frowning at the cover. Rereading the blurb at the back. Wondering if a refund is out of the question.

In the buffet corner, weighing over 100 kilos, from the bridegroom’s hometown of Matara, sports journo, talent broker, amateur coach: Newton ‘I came to eat, not to be insulted’ Rodrigo.

In the champagne corner, weighing under 180 lbs, teacher, preacher, video fixer, uninvited guest: Ariyaratne ‘I have watched every test match since 1948’ Byrd.

Ari is my neighbour and my drinking partner. I have smuggled him in and he has smuggled in a bottle. The Oberoi wasn’t Ari’s usual watering hole. He has tanked up already at somewhere far less plush. I should have expected trouble.

We are at the wedding of the Great Lankan Opening Batsman, or the GLOB as we shall call him. The GLOB is a man of the people and has invited to his wedding members of the press, ground staff, and a sprinkling of international cricketing celebrities.

Thirty tables away, Graham Snow and Mohinder Binny are swooning over a gaggle of girls. Both were former players who became commentators and then became players. The buffet table has seven types of buriyani. Next to vats of chicken, Tyronne Cooray, the Minister for Sports and Recreation, is laughing with Tom Whatmore, the then coach of the Sri Lanka cricket team.

And this is where it begins. At the Lanka Oberoi in 1994. With Ari Byrd, Thomian blazer torn along the creases, pressing a chicken drumstick into the face of Newton, shrieking, ‘You came to eat, no? Ithing kaapang! Eat!’

I have seen many fights. Boxing bouts in Kurunegala, barroom brawls in Maradana. Never have the combatants been less skilled, more drunk, or better dressed.

A waiter guards the buffet table as the men in torn suits roll against empty chairs.

Newton takes a hard bite on the chicken, chomping down on two of Ari’s fingers.

‘Ah-wa!’

Ari’s scream is high and girlish. Our table, composed of inebriated journalists like myself, chuckles, sips and gazes around with pleasure at sari-clad women, exotic dancers and international celebrities, who, thanks to Ari’s scream, are gazing back, though perhaps not with as much pleasure.

Most observe from the dance floor. Disapproving aunties and jolly uncles push through the has-beens and never-will-bes. Hand on mouth in mock shock. ‘This is what happens when you invite the riff-raff,’ cackles a crow in a sari. No one for a moment considers stopping the fight just then. Not even us.

Two reasons: (a) Sports journalists rarely see anything in the way of entertainment, especially these days, especially on the cricket field. (b) We all dislike Newton and feel he deserved this bludgeoning with buriyani chicken.

Newton has made a lot more money than any of us. ‘For me, of course, journalism is a hobby. A calling. Pocket money.’ Newton brings young cricketers to Colombo and sells them to clubs; he also studies race sheets, politically and literally backing the right horses always. I know this pudgy man as well as I know the gentleman who was dousing him in gravy.

‘Shall we do something?’ asks Brian Gomez, TV presenter and prankster. Brian once typed a letter on Oxford stationery asking Newton to visit the British High Commission to receive his Queen’s scholarship. The next day Newton wore a suit to work.

‘Let them be,’ says Renganathan, Tamil cricket writer. Renga is a good bugger, but unhealthily obsessed with Roy Dias. When he was editor at the
Weekend,
he ran one issue with seventeen articles on this wristy batsman of the 1980s.

Newton gains the upper hand. He smears rice in Ari’s eyes and crawls under the table. Elmo Tawfeeq of the
Daily News
tries to separate them, gets elbowed twice, and decides to sit down. Elmo once told us that he hit Imran Khan for a 6. In actuality, he played club cricket with a Bangladeshi who Imran once hammered for 6.

These are the men I have spent my years with and they are all drunk. Failed artists, scholars and idealists who now hate all artists, scholars and idealists. The band has stopped playing and I hear raised voices in the distance. Newton and Ari knock into veteran scribes Palitha Epasekera and Rex Palipane and I decide to intervene.

I gulp down the last of my rum, but before I can offer my services, the bride of the GLOB enters, shining under yellow lights. A delicate petal, bouquet in hands, tears in eyes.

In the distance, her husband advances with concern smeared across his brow, thinking what I am thinking: that these animals would tear his flower apart. The flower drops her bouquet and screams in an accent that sounds like Sydney but could be Melbourne, in a voice that is anything but petal-like: ‘Get the fuck out of my wedding! You fucking arseholes!’

We can take a fist from a brute, but not a curse from a bride. The waiters assist us in packing up the fight. Released from Ari’s gin-powered grip, Newton picks up a mutton curry with intent.

‘Put that down!’ The GLOB descends on the scene. ‘Yanawa methaning! Get out!’ Both Newton and Ari heed the great man. With the GLOB is Ravi de Mel, has-been fast bowler. He looks for the softest target, finds it, and snarls. ‘Ah, Karunasena. Who else? Kindly take your friends and bugger off.’

Fearing unfavourable press, the GLOB puts on his man-of-the-people smile and pats me on the back. ‘Don’t get angry, Mr Karuna. Wife is bit upset. Don’t you know?’

As we are led out, I see a dark man with a crew cut. He is leaning on table 151, surrounded by sycophants. Indian captain Azharuddin is chatting to him, though the man doesn’t appear to be listening. Our eyes meet and he raises his hand. I return the wave, but he has already averted his gaze.

That may or may not have been the moment that started what you are about to read. But it was most certainly the last time I ever saw Pradeep Sivanathan Mathew.

Today Newton looks like a hippo, those days he was more like a rhino. Mathew may have caused the fight, but it was started by Newton. He had issues with me that went beyond cricket and provoked me knowing I would not respond. He didn’t count on noble, smashed-on-stolen-gin Ari leaping, quite literally, to my defence.

The ballroom smells of flowers, buriyani and thousands of clashing perfumes. Strategic buffet tables separate cricket refugees from social parasites. The deluxe section features the national team, some minor celebs film stars, models and people wealthy enough to own film stars and models.

The middle section is filled with aunties and uncles, media and business types. They have the best view of the dance floor and the band, neither of which seemed to interest them. And then there are us. The journalists, coaches, ground staff, B-grade cricketers, C-grade friends.

Our table sits ten: me, Ari, Newton, Brian, Renga, Elmo, a Pakistani from the Associated Press, his friend and a young couple who look lost. At the other end of the room, there is a bar serving scotch, vodka and champagne. Our table has a bottle of arrack and several glasses of passion fruit cordial. We are men of simple tastes: anything, or even with nothing, with arrack will do.

‘I should be drinking Chivas with Snow and Sobers,’ says Newton. ‘They must’ve misprinted my ticket.’

‘So go, will you,’ says Ari. ‘Maybe Mohinder Binny will ask you to dance.’

The band plays a synthetic love song and the happy couple hold each other and move from side to side. We make quick work of the booze. Everyone whacks two shots, Ari and I whack four. The Pakistanis, Allah be praised, do not drink. As the lights dim, I explore unoccupied tables for bottles to steal. When I return with gin, the conversation has turned to cricket.

Brian Gomez, ever the patriot, proclaims that this Sri Lankan team could be our greatest. Ari says they are OK, but nowhere near the true greats like Lloyd’s Windies or Bradman’s Invincibles. ‘Clive Lloyd’s team is the best I’ve ever seen,’ proclaims Renga. We hide our smirks. Every time Renga sees a film or witnesses a cover drive, he proclaims it to be ‘the best he’s ever seen’.

The Pakistani journalist talks of an all-time football XI featuring Zico, Best and Maradona. We sip stolen booze and begin fantasising. What if Ali fought Tyson? Or Navratilova played Billie Jean? It’s a good way to pass the time. Better than staring at the dance floor, pretending to grin.

We agree that Lloyd’s team were literally head and shoulders above the rest. Elmo offers that Bradman’s Invincibles were invincible only because of Bradman. ‘You eliminate him, good team. Invincible? That I don’t know.’ We all drink a toast to Clive Lloyd. The young couple slink off to another table.

Newton is petulant throughout. ‘Our team couldn’t even draw a two-day match with Bradman.’

‘Don’t say that,’ says Brian. ‘We beat New Zealand.’

The dance floor writhes with famous names and dolled-up women who do not belong to them. From the roar of the house band and the machinations of the dancers, it is evident that the alcohol denied to our table has been flowing freely on the other side of the room. Understandable. Dolled-up women prefer to have their bottoms pinched by international cricketers and not by those who write about them.

The Pakistani journalist begins scribbling on napkins. As the only man at the table with an education outside of Asia, he convinces us with diagrams and eloquence that the perfect cricket team should be composed as such:

Seduced by his Parthan lilt and logical arguments, we nod collectively The Windies were great, but not perfect. No spinner. No all-rounder. Lloyd had four types of hurricanes at his disposal: the elegant Holding, the belligerent Roberts, the towering Garner and the fiery Marshall. Who needs spinners, counters an argumentative Newton.

Booze flows and conversation splinters. Graham Snow toasts the GLOB and his bride, who begin doing the rounds of the ballroom. Ari and the Pakistani journalist whisper and scribble on napkins. The rest of us charge our glasses and clap as the band switches to traditional baila and a bald man with a moustache commandeers the mic from a bearded man in a hat. Both are middle-aged, potbellied and wearing leather trousers.

Ari and the Pakistani journo silence the table with an announcement. Elmo, Brian and Renga listen while wiggling their bellies to the bajaw beat.

‘Gentlemen. We have constructed the world’s greatest cricket team.’

Ari and the Pakistani have prepared a slide show of napkins. Dinner arrives at the table, but is pushed aside for the presentation. ‘Of course, I don’t agree with some choices,’ says the Pakistani.

Newton raises his glass. There is much nodding. ‘The masters,’ says Elmo.

There is applause. We grin at each other with appreciation. ‘How about Zaheer Abbas?’ says the quiet friend of the Pakistani journo. We all glare at him and he pipes down into his passion fruit.

I mention the word Hadlee. Ari and the Pakistani inform me that sadly there are no New Zealanders on this team. ‘What about Sri Lankans?’ asks Brian and we all snigger. This was 1994. We were drunk, but not stupid.

And here the group erupts. Denis Lindsay over Tallon? Knott? Bari? Madness. Newton calls the list pathetic. The rest of the critics hurl their knives. Not me.