One one things

I’ve been spending the better part of the last 5 days at the SSC watching SL whip a depleted South Africa. It was a fairly typical game bar the records with our buggers batting the opposition out and then Murali bowling half the overs and taking 10for. There are few things that i’d rather do than watch test cricket at the SSC, I still remember watching my first test match there with uncle B back in 1993 when India toured here. That time Kambli and Tendulkar sent us on a serious leather hunt, but I still enjoyed it, soaking in the atmosphere of the ground, within a stones throw from my heroes, and urging a young Muralitharan to spin it even more. The sad thing is hardly anyone else in Colombo seems to want to go and watch test cricket. Other than on Saturday afternoon when there was a chance of Mahela eclipsing Lara, the ground held barely 100 ppl, despite tickets being cheaper than a cup of coke. Yet for one day games where tickets sell for upto 5 grand, grounds fill up to spilling point.

This is quite a sad thing bc the team is playing excellent cricket these days, and some of the greats of the game like Murali and Sanath will not be around for much longer. The players must feel quite insulted that nobody considers it worthwhile turning up to watch them entertain, and entertain they do, I mean Sanga and Mahela put on 600+ at over 4 an over, on a slow wicket. It’s difficult to explain this apathy, Sri Lanka is supposedly a cricket mad country and with tickets so cheap and accessible (there’s no Sri Lanka cricket family and what not). Maybe Colombo is spoilt, I guess ppl rather watch the game at home in the A/C than go and support the boys more directly. When England came down in 2003 I wasn’t sure whether I was in Sri Lanka or at some beach in Cornwall. Percy did his best shouting to out-do the Barmy Army with his one man Sri Lanka Navy but he had no chance. In this context it’s inexplicable why less cricket is played outside the capital, Galle and Kandy attract far more fans and therefore deserve to see more cricket.

I also wonder whether Sri Lanka is as cricket mad as everyone says it is. When foreigners talk about Sri Lankan cricket they say that every little alley is taken up by kids wielding bat and ball, but that doesn’t really seem to be the case. I hardly ever see street cricket when driving around Colombo these days. Maybe kids are too busy going for tuition or playing PSII. At the same time, in the rest of the world interest in cricket is at a peak, the Ashes tickets sold out instantly, Indian grounds are perpetually full, and even the West Indies attracts support despite playing rather awful cricket in that last series against India, the same applies to Bangladesh. Colombo fails to appreciate what it has. The SSC is also one of the best grounds to enjoy cricket, the HSBC stand with its 3 tiers is absolutely fantastic and a steal at 150 bucks for a day. The ground is superbly located unlike Kheththa and Sara (it’s beyond me why the 2nd test is being played there), and yet ppl shun it.

The only thing I can suggest is that pitches in Colombo are not the best for cricket. The SSC used to be excellent, with a bit of pace and bounce on the first day, super batting on days 2 and 3 and turn on the last 2 days. But as Murali lamented the other day, even the SSC is getting slower and slower, making it difficult to play strokes and offering little to the bowlers. But the bottom line I think is that Sri Lankans do not appreciate test cricket. We seem to prefer wham bang thank you ma’am ODI’s, and that’s a shame bc tests are the real thing. And we do have a good test team, for now. Without Vaas and Murali in a couple of years time it could be a totally different story, and then it will dawn on us that we’ve failed to enjoy and appreciate some very special talents over the last decade or so.