The Legend of Pradeep Mathew (3 page)

I saw Lindsay tour Sri Lanka as part of a Commonwealth side in the 1960s and keep wickets to the fire of Wes Hall and Freddie Trueman and the wiles of Chandrasekhar and Prasanna. I have never seen that level of agility in anyone outside of a cartoon film. Apartheid was responsible for many tragedies. Somewhere at the bottom of a long list would be the short careers of Graeme Pollock, Barry Richards and Denis Lindsay.

Some say ooh. Some say aah. Some say Sidney who? I mention that the great Lillee took all his wickets in England, Australia, and New Zealand. That over a twelve-year career he never took a wicket in India or the West Indies. No one listens to me.

The clatter of plates and chatter of guests replace baila as the dominant noise. Across the ballroom everyone digs into the roast chicken and richly flavoured rice. But our table is undivided in its attention.

Who could the genius spinner be? A leggie like Grimmet or Qadir? An offie like Laker or Gibbs? A left-armer like Bedi or Underwood?

And pandemonium begins. The Pakistani shakes his head and says he had nothing to do with it. Renga, Brian and Elmo hoot with laughter.

‘Y’all are cocked, ah?’ Newton launches into a tirade. ‘If you want to put a Lankan, put Aravinda or Duleep. Pradeep Mathew? How can you call yourselves sports journalists? Bloody fools.’

Ari puts up his hand. ‘This list is based on stats and natural ability. Both Mathew and Lindsay have strike rates and averages that rank them with the greats.’

I step in. ‘I saw Lindsay in ‘63. Maara reflexes. Jonty Rhodes is nowhere. He jumped in front of the batsman to take a catch at silly mid-off.’

‘You bloody drunkard, it was ‘66,’ says Newton. ‘Y’all are idiots. Mathew can’t even make the current side.’

And in the economy section of the crystal ballroom, gobbling chicken buriyani amidst famous acquaintances, Ari and I begin telling them. About the multiple variations, the prize scalps, the balls that defied physics, and that legendary spell at Asgiriya. No one believes us.

Newton calls me a drunk a few more times. I call him a bribe-taking pimp. The rest of the table retreat, while Ari begins slurring.

And as the temperature rises, I look around and see the man himself in a circle of people, looking lost. At his side is a pretty girl, whispering in his ear is the Indian skipper, hanging on each syllable are career reserve Charith Silva and Sri Lankan cheerleader Reggie Ranwala.

Mathew is glaring at me, as if he knows his name is about to cause a brawl. As if he knows I will spend the next five years searching for him. As if he knows he will never be found.

And then, Newton calls me a talentless illiterate who should be writing women’s features. And then, Ari stuffs a chicken into Newton’s open mouth. And then, all is noise.

The ball is made of leather with a hard seam running its circumference. The bat is made of willow. The sound of one hitting the other is music.

Today I cannot write. There are birds outside my window. They are being shrill. People, mainly birdwatchers, think birds are treasures of Lanka and their songs more melodious than the collected works of Boney M and Shakin’ Stevens.

I find a fish market more melodic. These sparrows and parrots remind me of parliament during my reporting days. I cannot write. I cannot think. There are birds outside my window. So I will drink.

The GLOB once claimed that just because he could hit a ball with a bat it didn’t make him better than anyone else. Was he being falsely modest or genuinely humble? Like many of our local umpires and selectors over the years, I will give him the benefit of the doubt.

But there is some truth to what he says. Does Sri Lanka need more schoolteachers, more soldiers, or more wicketkeepers? What’s more useful to society? A middle order batsman or a bank manager? A specialist gully fieldsman or a civil engineer? A left-arm spinner or a plumber?

I have been told by members of my own family that there is no use or value in sports. I only agree with the first part.

I may be drunk, but I am not stupid. Of course there is little point to sports. But, at the risk of depressing you, let me add two more cents.
There is little point to anything.
In a thousand years, grass will have grown over all our cities. Nothing of anything will matter.

Left-arm spinners cannot unclog your drains, teach your children or cure you of disease. But once in a while, the very best of them will bowl a ball that will bring an entire nation to its feet. And while there may be no practical use in that, there is most certainly value.

The battleground. 22 yards, punctuated at either end by three stumps. If the pitch is grassy and moist, the ball whizzes through. If it is wet or bone dry, the ball will spin. The pitch serves as a scapegoat for many failures, though it is seldom referred to by those celebrating success.

Inspired by napkins and wedding punch-ups, I decide to write short articles on the ten greatest Sri Lankan cricketers of all time. I will not tell you who are on my list. I am already sick to death of lists.

At the risk of sounding like Renga, I will say that the articles are the best things I have written in forty-one years of wielding a pen. Despite this, or perhaps because of this, the
Observer
refuses to publish them.

The
Observer
and I have a history. I was there from ’58 to ’71, winning Ceylon Sportswriter of the Year in 1969. I left to find my way in the world. I then lost my way in the world, and returned a prodigal in ’91. In between I had won a few more awards, done a stint in radio, been sacked twice from reputed newspapers and acquired a reputation as a belligerent drunk.

I’m not sure why the editor of the
Observer
despised me. It could have been my debonair, devil-may-care swagger. Or it could be the fact that I spilled brandy on his wife at a Christmas party in ’79. He could not sack me before I was pensionable, for fear of labour courts. So, sadist that he was, he kept me away from the sports pages and put me on parliament duty, the role of a glorified stenographer.

He refuses to publish my articles, claiming, maliciously, that they are poorly written. The
Weekend
doesn’t think so. They publish three before going bankrupt. Or more specifically, before going bankrupt due to their printing presses being set on fire by men with gold jewellery and cans of petrol a week after publishing a story involving the government and an address that was too accurate for its own good.

Kreeda,
a magazine I helped start, publishes all ten, but has the circulation of an illustrated porn rag. Palitha Epasekera agrees to translate the articles for
Ravaya,
but that never happens. But then in ’95, over a year after they are written,
Sportstar
say they are interested in three: Aravinda, Sathasivam and Mathew.
Sportstar
pays handsomely, which is just as well, because the
Observer
is in the process of terminating my employment for freelancing for other publications.

This too is just as well. I am tired of sitting in parliament, watching fat men braying like mules and squabbling like infants. I send a letter to the company accountant on 26 April, the day of my birth, informing him of my recent elevation to the age of pensionability. I now never have to work or worry about drink money ever again. There are some perks of ageing.

There are also some perks of working forty-one years in journalism. Free buffets, free booze, free hotel rooms, free invites to functions, free tickets to matches. In exchange for no pay, no respect, and the very real possibility of being bludgeoned to death by a government-sponsored thug.

Cheerio to the lot of you. You will not be missed.

If you’ve never seen a cricket match; if you have and it has made you snore; if you can’t understand why anyone would watch, let alone obsess over this dull game, then this is the book for you.

Ari Byrd is my next-door neighbour. He teaches maths at Science College in Mount Lavinia and lectures at the University of Moratuwa. He calls himself a fixer of gadgets, but I would describe him as more of a breaker. His front room and his garage are littered with carcasses of video players, walkmans, spool machines and Polaroid cameras. He buys these gadgets through the
Sunday Observer
classifieds, obsolete technology with broken parts at a cut price.

‘Wije, God has given you a gift that you are wasting,’ he says. ‘You must write a book.’

This was many years before the stomach pains.

‘Yes. Yes,’ I reply. ‘One day, the stories I will tell… Definitely.’

Promises uttered by Sri Lankans ending in the word definitely have a high likelihood of being broken. We use the word as the Mexicanos would say mañana.

My friend Jonny Gilhooley likes the articles and is not a man given to insincerity. He says, ‘WeeGee, me bonnie lad, you should write for
Wisden.’
Renganathan calls me and says ‘Karu, those were the best articles I have ever read.’

Of course, there are the critics. My sweet, darling Sheila in her kind, gentle way says, ‘What, Gamini? Those three were hopeless, no? Your Duleep and Arjuna ones were better.’

Thankfully, the years have given me the maturity to deal with criticism.

I bump into my nemesis Newton Rodrigo at a club game.

‘Heard you got sacked from the
Observer
?’

‘I retired. Unlike some, I know when to quit,’ I parry.

‘If that was the case, you would’ve quit in the 1970s,’ he chuckles.

‘When I was at the top. True,’ I muse. ‘As I recall, even in those days you were feeding at the bottom, no?’

He stops laughing. ‘I don’t have time to talk baila with you. Why are you obsessed with that Mathew? Your articles were OK. In the hands of a better writer, they could’ve been good.’

I submit the articles to
Wisden,
and receive no response. So in the early months of retirement, I spend my minutes hidden in my cluttered room, trying to write more words for syndication. I end up wasting afternoons arguing with Sheila about our son, Garfield. The boy is just out of his teens and shows no interest in anything other than listening to noise in his room and pretending not to smoke.

My favourite waste of time is daydreaming unanswerables about Mathew. Who did he get his talent from? Why did he not play regularly? Where did he disappear to?

I haven’t yet told you about the Asgiriya test. I’m hoping there will be world enough and time.

The phone rings. The phone is always for Garfield. Giggly girls and boys shouting swear words. I have ways of dealing with them.

‘Could I speak with DubLew Gee Karoonasayna, please?’

‘Speaking.’

‘You been writing for the
Sportstar
on Shree Lankan cricketers?’

‘That is correct. To whom am I…’

‘Great stuff. Especially that piece on the spinner Mathew. I saw him, you know, in the ’87 World Cup… um… hold on, please.’

I hear the same voice barking in the distance. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake… I thought we weren’t going live. OK. OK. Now piss off.’

‘Hello, Mr Karoonasayna…’

‘Call me Gamini…’

‘Mate, I’ve to go on air. Can you make it to the Presidential Suite at the Taj at 10?’

‘Of course.’

‘Oh, and come alone.’

‘Definitely.’

And that was how I got to meet Mr Graham Snow.

It has its own entrance and its own lift. Both are carpeted and plated in silver, shined to the point of reflection. The lift is as big as my office room, designed, presumably, to transport bodyguards and entourages to the seventeenth floor in one go.

We aren’t the only ones heading to the Taj Renaissance Presidential Suite. We share the lift with Hashan Mahanama and career reserve Charith Silva, both a year away from being immortalised as members of the ’96 world-conquering squad. They are flanked by no less than five young lasses. All with straightened hair, knee-length skirts and varying degrees of make-up.