The Legend of Pradeep Mathew

by Shehan Karunatilaka

  If only he’d use it, I think.

  ‘My friend Newton Rodrigo, you must be knowing, women’s team coach, also was a journalist …’

  I nod.

  ‘He gave me this.’

  I look in fury at my own copy of The Art of Cricket. I flip open the pages.

  ‘It is autographed by Bradman himself.’

  I turn to the title page. Best Wishes Donald Bradman

  ‘That bloody bastard. Can I use your phone?’

  ‘For what?’

  I tell him I’m going to call Newton and scream at him for lending my book out. Reggie’s face changes. ‘No. No. You take your book. No need to call.’ He tries to distract me with autographed bats, balls, pads and gloves, and then pours me a drink. It works.

  White sunlight illuminates grubby walls. Next to a pile of video cassettes is a large TV, dusty, with duty-free sticker still intact. In the background a Sinhala station plays Gunadasa Kapuge. The red floors are unpolished and cluttered with souvenirs. Anything concave has been turned into an ashtray.

  Batsmen describe it as getting your eye in, American sportswriters refer to being ‘in the zone’, but that doesn’t quite explain it. I drink to attain a level. The level is the point where your thoughts are clear, your body is relaxed and your manner has charm. The optimum before the returns diminish and you turn into a beast.

  When I was young, two drinks would get me to the level and I would stop. Those days are long gone. For a long time my level was a half-bottle and anything more would relieve me of my dignity. Then it was two-thirds of a bottle, then it became one and a quarter. As the quantity increased I would move from Distilled to Old to Blue Label to gal.

  But then the level would waver, my clarity would become fleeting, unpredictable, my charm would dwindle, my control would vanish. And that’s when I would hurl insults like that caged monkey at Dehiwela Zoo who would hurl faeces at visitors.

  When Reggie hands me the drink, I think about the level and I tell myself it will be two drinks. The first shot is devastating, my tongue goes into shock and my eyes start tearing. It will be difficult to make it to two. I will keep filling his glass and topping mine with shandy. I shall use the arrack to give me clarity, but I will not let it control me. So that one day perhaps I may drink with impunity and without symptoms.

  ‘So, Reggie malli. Tell me about the 278,000.’

  Last Man/No Chance

  Every time before I step out to umpire, both captains – the tallest Marzooq boy and the nastiest beach boy – go over the rules with me. Houses are out. Windows are minus 6. The mango tree and beyond is 4 and 6. There are no back runs and the batting side will provide a wicketkeeper.

  These rules are subject to fluctuation depending on the number and calibre of players. It is I who insist on clarifying the rules before the toss and on marking the score in my notebook.

  The most fascinating debate is over the not-out batsman. Do we, like in real cricket, deny him batting when he runs out of partners? Or do we let him play on, the innings ending only when every single player has been dismissed?

  On Sri Lanka’s streets and playgrounds, this is known as last man/no chance vs last man/have chance. No chance means he doesn’t bat, have chance means he does. No chance means that there is no hope if the side lets you down. Have chance means that it is possible for one player to single-handedly deliver victory. I know which one I prefer.

  Flight and Drift

  Flight is how long the ball hangs in the air. Drift is the trajectory it takes from fingers to pitch. Mastery of these two elements is what makes a great spin bowler. Everything else is frills.

  The strategy for grappling with a spinner is to use your feet, get to the pitch of the ball and smother it before it deceives you. Good flight makes a ball appear closer than it is. Good drift makes a batsman commit to a shot he may not be able to play. Take away flight and drift and you’re just a slow bowler who turns the ball. Insert these ingredients and you become a magician.

  In Zimbabwe in 1994, at the twilight of his career, having mastered flight, drift and when to use which, Mathew bowled an assortment of some of the most unusual deliveries ever invented. He was no-balled for a ball that flew some 20 feet skywards before bouncing on the wickets. The ball was deemed illegal for, as the umpire put it, ‘hanging in the air too long’.

  Hacks Toffees

  In the end I only had three drinks and Reggie had the rest. He is babbling like a baby as we walk to the Panadura bus stop. I should have left when he started drooling into his lap. Instead I stayed till his emotional age plummeted from teenager to toddler. I told him to pull himself together. On the way, I buy six Hacks toffees, which I consume two at a time.

  ‘Hiding from your wife, ah?’ he says, wiping his tears. ‘My wife also complains. I tell her my car, my petrol.’

  The petrol is burning a hole in my stomach; I cannot wait to go home and pass out. Sleep is the best antidote to pain. It serves to combat hunger, sometimes even life. I pull him back when he almost walks into the path of a Lanka Ashok Leyland truck, its name revealing its multinational origins.

  Zebra crossings in Sri Lanka are not directives but optional suggestions which motorists ignore. Traffic lights may some day go the same way.

  ‘Mr Karuna, I can’t walk all that way, I’m a bit cut. Do you have that payment?’

  ‘Will three do it?’

  ‘Three hundred?’ He frowns.

  ‘Thou.’

  He grins and hugs me and burps a vat of arrack breath into my nostrils.

  ‘Anything more you want to know about Mathew or Sana or Arjuna, you call me.’

  I hand him the notes and get on the 101 bus. I fall asleep and wake up in Fort.

  Soorial Tests

  It takes me a few moments to realise that the word Reggie keeps repeating is surreal. He pronounces it ‘soori-al’ as one would pronounce Sooriyarachchi or the Sanskrit word for sun.

  ‘Maara soorial those African tests, ah. They say it was the devil winds that blew down from Mount Nyanga and that’s the reason.’

  ‘Mount what?’ I begin to regret allowing Reggie the rest of the bottle.

  ‘There was something soorial about all those matches.’

  ‘Like what?’

  He reaches under his bed and pulls out a shoebox; he holds it away from me and rummages.

  ‘There. Your man Mathew, shaved head and all, you should’ve seen.’

  He tells me about a ball that hung suspended in the winds, about flippers that changed direction, and no-balls that bounced twice. I tell him that I have with my own eyes seen the floater, the lissa and the double bounce.

  ‘There.’ He hands me a photo. Even with the angle lopsided, the photo blurred and the photographer’s finger in the top left corner, I can recognise Heath Streak bowling to Nuwan Kalpage. I can also see that each fielder including the wicketkeeper is on the leg side.

  ‘That was the wind, ammapa. African winds. Even if the batsman hits to the off, ball goes to leg.’

  He tells me that the wind was so strong that Haturusinghe reverse-swept three sixers. That at one point there were six sets of brothers on the field at once. From the bowling side there were two Flowers, two Strangs, two Rennies and two Whittles. Ranatunga and Samaraweera who were batting both asked their brothers to run for them. I make a note to look this up.

  He tells me that the Sri Lankans had to bowl into the jaws of that haunted wind from Mount Nyanga that favoured the home side.

  ‘You’re talking about the wind?’

  ‘The wind only. It followed our bowlers around. Whichever end we bowled from, the wind was against us.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Ammapa.’

  ‘What about Zimba?’

  ‘When they bowled, the wind was behind them. Always.’

  When I looked up the 1994 Zimbabwe series in our archives, I found no mention of brothers or of partisan winds, only that it was one of the dullest series of all time, between two weak sides,
which yielded three drawn tests and three washed-out one-dayers. Reggie Ranwala begs to differ.

  ‘You must look at the subtle Nuwan-Zoysas.’

  ‘You mean subtle nuances.’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  When he tells me that in the third test, all four innings were played in one day, I shake my head.

  ‘Of course. We scored 280 and were out third day morning. Then they were out for 97 in 23 overs. We were out for 62 in 17. They began second innings. All in one day.’

  ‘They won?’

  ‘No. They thattu-ed for two days. Rose played a beautiful 144. They ended at 230 for 7.’

  SL won the first one-dayer, Zimba won the second. The other games were destroyed by gales and rains long before the 20th over, so even Duckworth and Lewis could be of no help. As if the weather gods themselves did not wish to resolve the ‘who is the crappiest test nation’ tournament.

  According to Reggie four wickets fell in a Mathew over, but he was not credited with any of them.

  First ball to Flower, Pradeep slipped on the crease and crashed into the stumps, accidentally running out non-striker Brandes. Second ball was a top spinner, whose rosy revolutions attracted two African bees. Waller, swiping at the insects, accidentally knocked the ball he just defended and was adjudged out hit the ball twice.

  ‘Reggie. Give me that bottle.’

  Fourth ball, Gurusinha at short leg appealed when Goodwin passed him the ball and the umpire delivered a verdict of out handled ball. Mathew geared up to bowl the fifth delivery and was left waiting for thirteen minutes, while last man Olonga, suffering from what turned out to be cholera, was unable to put on his pads while emptying his bowels of water. The Captain appealed for time out and it was given.

  ‘Reggie, I’m off.’

  ‘Ammapa. Allistruetruetrue.’

  ‘You have been very helpful. Let’s meet up again. Definitely.’

  ‘I’llwalkyoutobus …’ says Reggie. ‘I tell how Zimbabwean People’s Revolutionary Army, who blew up planes in the 1970s, designed bomb like a cricket ball and gave it to the umpires …’

  I stop listening to him and I only think of what he told me before the Mendis took effect.

  ‘If the police hadn’t caught, opening batsman and keeper would be exploded. Ammapa.’

  Ammapa roughly translates to ‘I swear on my mother’. I felt sorry for the poor old lady. Wherever she is, she must be sneezing a lot. Or coughing.

  Cheating

  ‘In the 1970s, some top US company invented a ticket dispenser that was impossible to fraud,’ says Reggie Ranwala. ‘One of our buggers cracked it, no?’ There is pride in his voice.

  The GenCY was involved in the administration of Sri Lankan cricket for most of the 1980s. The GenCY had captained Royal, represented Cambridge and played three seasons for Middlesex. He had served at various times as coach, manager, selector and treasurer.

  ‘Sir would always say, “You are gentlemen first, sportsmen second,”’ recalls Charith Silva. As a result, Lankans never appealed for a bump ball, never reacted to sledging, and always walked when dismissed.

  The GenCY’s rival for the control of the Board of Control was the Minister.

  The Minister had done much for Sri Lankan cricket. He had built stadiums, brought in outstation players and set up coaching clinics. He hoped to rise up party ranks on the wave of cricket. And he knew you couldn’t rise to the top by being a gentleman.

  The Minister insisted that Sri Lanka play tough and win by whatever means necessary. In his biography, Pakistani prince Imran Khan claims that Sri Lanka’s home test victory against his side in ’86 was the result of a directive by the Minister to local umpires to deliver a victory at any cost. Kapil Dev had voiced a similar opinion a year earlier.

  ‘Our man would never cheat,’ says Charith, shaking his head. ‘Pradeep would never bowl at the footmarks. Or appeal if he thought it’s not out.’

  Bowling at the footmarks isn’t cheating; wilfully scuffing the pitch to create them, as some subcontinental leg spinners have been known to, is.

  ‘Mathew was the only one who listened to Manager,’ says Reggie, referring to the GenCY. ‘Other fellows did what the Minister said.’

  In sports, politics and everything else, Sri Lankans tend to veer between jungle law and Victorian morality. Ari, for instance, litters, drives drunk, jumps queues, bribes policemen, but refuses to cheat at Monopoly, Omi or 304.

  Picking the Seam

  The ball has a shiny side and a rough side. One offers less air resistance and causes the ball to move in the air and off the ground. While it is legal to shine one side, it is illegal to disfigure the other.

  Many great and not-so-great bowlers have been accused of tampering with the ball. These include the Pakistani fire-breathing demons, whose reverse-swinging yorkers were questioned by opposition captains who had no answer to them.

  Before a game in Sharjah, Ravi de Mel announced in a team meeting that he did not believe ball tampering was illegal and that he was going to pick the seam. The GenCY, whose influence was already on the wane, tendered his resignation with immediate effect. Everyone else was strangely silent.

  ‘I also don’t think it is wrong,’ says Charith Silva.

  ‘Did you ever pick the seam?’ I ask.

  ‘Everyone picks the seam. It’s like polishing the ball. It’s an art.’

  ‘Did you do it?’

  ‘Are you mad? Get caught and I’m finished. I don’t have a rich father like Ravi de Mel.’

  In three one-dayers in 1993, Ravi de Mel bowled 17 wides and uncountable full tosses and gave away over 150 runs in less than 20 overs. The ball swung, seamed, reverse-swung and reverse-seamed, and failed to go anywhere near the batsman. Even the Minister was unable to save de Mel’s career.

  ‘Damn good for the bugger,’ chuckles Reggie. ‘Thought he could be Wasim Akram. In the end he runs in like Waqar and bowls like Inzamam. Got hammered.’

  Proving that even when cheating, one must possess a quotient of talent and skill.

  Who’s the Daddy?

  Failure is an orphan, success has many fathers. If we could do a paternity test on the 1996 World Cup, whose seed would triumph? The Captain who scored the winning runs? The interim committee that was ousted a week later? The coach who would storm out in a year? The Minister who was killed two years before?

  Or was it the man who wrote to the ICC demanding cricket reforms for Sri Lanka? The man who showed every time he came on to bowl that Sri Lankans could be as good as anyone else. Who on certain days at certain moments could even prove beyond doubt that we were better.

  Who encouraged the GLOB to hit over the top and advised the dark spinner from Kandy not to change his action. The man who taught the Captain to sledge. The man who disappeared 207 days before that final in Lahore.

  Stuff that No One Reads

  There are many interesting things Kuga tells me. Here are just a smattering of sound bytes.

  He tells me that the majority of his employees are Sinhala. His ID forger had been fired by the Ratnapura Grama Sevaka just before completing five years, a ruse to avoid paying gratuity. Workers are then re-hired while management pockets the bonus. The soon-to-be-unemployed civil servant stole ten thousand sheets, the camera and the laminating machine. ‘My suicide bombers may not have been reliable. But they all had authentic Sri Lankan IDs,’ says Kuga, patting down his stubble.

  He tells me his couriers are all Sinhala and move around during heavy monsoon. ‘When it’s raining no one stops you at checkpoints. Best time to move explosives around.’

  He gives me a list of eleven names, enough for a cricket team, though none of them are cricketers. Richard, Ranjan, Lalith, Tyronne, Prema, Rajiv, Gamini, Neelan, Vijaya, Clancy, Denzil.

  ‘Six of those kills were my operation,’ says I.E. Kugarajah, the man with three mobile phones. ‘But I won’t tell you which.’

  He tells me that The Godfather is his favourite film.

  �
�Do you know what the best line from it is?’ he asks, picking at his newly grown goatee. Kuga, despite looking well into his forties, is a man who has not stopped experimenting with facial hair.

  As you know, I am no cinema buff, but The Godfather is one of those films, like Casablanca, that Ari quotes ad nauseam.

  ‘What about that famous line? Here is an offer no one will be able to say no to.’

  ‘No,’ he smiles. ‘It is …’

  ‘Luca Vaasy is doing something with the fisheries?’

  ‘No, it’s …’

  ‘Why you no respect …’

  ‘NO.’

  ‘No need to shout so. Tell.’

  ‘A lawyer with a briefcase can steal more than hundred men with guns.’

  ‘I haven’t heard that one.’

  The first payment he gave Pradeep at Sharjah had the boy staring at his National Savings Bank passbook. ‘I said, ‘Pradeepan, what you’re staring at?’ He said, “The comma.” He said he’d never seen a comma in his account balance before.’ Kuga’s laugh is so loud that you are forced to smile or risk being accused of contempt.

  I tell him I do not think I will get the chance to deliver his note; he says he is sure I will. ‘You must stop looking so hard. One of my clients was a kalay bowler. Couldn’t hit the stumps to save his life. I got Sobers down to coach, he said to aim wide. When the fellow tried to bowl wide, it hit the wickets.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘He didn’t work out for me. My point is, if you stop looking for something, it turns up.’

  He tells me that he has letters between ministers and Tigers, that he can hire men to hurl elephant dung on me, but that I am not worth the cost of such services. He tells me many things I do not know what to do with. Here are just thirteen of them:

  That the Jaffna of his childhood was the most beautiful place on earth.

  That he invaded the pitch in 1975 during an SL vs Aus World Cup game at the Oval, carrying an Eelam flag.