Lankan cricketers meet Unforgettable Invincibles

By Quintus de Zylva
Neil Harvey and Sam Loxton will always be remembered for their contribution as members of the cricket team of 1948 lead by Donald Bradman. They are now idolized in Australia and they were honoured guests of Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd when he was host to the Sri Lanka cricket team at The Lodge in Canberra on January 26.

Harvey spoke with affection of the cricket match played in Colombo on their way to England by ship. It was a match he said that was played upholding the highest traditions of the gentleman’s game of cricket when a batsman walked if he was out - never waiting for an umpire to raise his finger. The word ‘sledging’ was not in the Oxford dictionary at that time and should never have become the hallmark of modern day cricket. Australia’s Governor General Maj-Gen Michael Jeffery echoed these sentiments when he said that sledging was “totally un-Australian and unacceptable”.

Sri Lanka now ranks with Australia and India as the top three cricketing nations and at the on-going Commonwealth Bank tri-nation ODI’s it is a fervent hope of all those who love the game of cricket that sanity and decency will prevail.

The Sri Lankan High Commissioner stressed the fact that the Sri Lanka cricket team had Muslims, Tamils, Burghers and Sinhalese playing for their country and flying the Sri Lanka flag proudly around the world.

Indian cricket official Niranjan Shah has called for a complete overhaul of the ICC’s code of conduct and James Sutherland CEO of Cricket Australia said that Andrew Symonds will have cause to reflect on his behaviour that led to the Harbhajan-Symonds controversy that has seriously damaged the spirit of the game.

Sri Lanka has been renowned as a nation that upholds the highest standards of cricket both on and off the field. We hope that Sri Lanka will lead the way through these turbulent times of International Cricket.