Remembering Aubrey Kuruppu, the all-rounder-by Upananda Jayasundera

Aubrey Kuruppu Pic by Upananda Jayasundera, Kandy Sports Special Corr

Source:Dailynews

The late Aubrey Kuruppu, an old boy of S. Thomas’ College, Mount Lavinia was a talented cricketer, coach, commentator and sports writer who obtained a Degree at the University of Peradeniya and ended up as a Lecturer of the English Department of the University of Peradeniya for more than three decades.

Aubrey passed away nearly two years back and his death is a great loss for cricket lovers.

He was in the school cricket team and was involved in the staff cricket team of the University for a number of years.

After passing out as a qualified cricket coach he joined Vidyartha College and Sri Rahula College for more than two decades and started coaching cricket.

Asela Gunaratne, former Sri Lanka Test cricketer was also one of his products.

Apart from representing S. Thomas’ as well as the University Cricket Team, he represented the Central Province Cricket Team and had the opportunity to Captain the CPCA Team and the Sri Lanka Cricket Board Team in the 1970’s.

Aubrey toured with the Sri Lanka Cricket Board XI to play against the Tamil Nadu Team under Anura Tennekoon in the year 1972.

Other team members in the Board Cricket Team were Ranjith Fernando (wicket-keeper), Duleep Mendis, David Hyen, D. S. de Silva, Lalith Kaluperuma, Nihal Samarasekera, Asitha Jayaweera, Sarath Fernando and Tony Opatha.

Apart from that, he toured India under W. A. N. Silva for a cricket tournament held at Luknow, India. Aubrey represented Central Province Team against England captained by Mike Denness and the team members were Keith Fletcher, Tony Greig and Dennis Amiss to name a few.

In that particular match Aubrey scored 34 as the highest score for the Central Province Team and after that the CPCA Cricket Team invited Ranjith Fernando, Sarath Wickramaratne and Duleep Mendis to strengthen the side to play against the Pakistan Under-25 Team.

In 1973, Aubrey represented combined University Team led by Neil Chanmugam and Sugi Rajaratnam, A. G. Perera, and H. I. K. Fernando were included in the Combined University Team.

The Combined University Team of Sri Lanka met the Combined University Team of India led by Ashok Gandotra and Surendra and Mahendra Amaranath, Sunil Gavaskar were also in that team.

Aubrey represented Sri Lanka State Services Team in the same year against Pakistan Under-25 Team captained by Wasim Raja and Talat Ali, Sultan Rahaman and Shafik Ahmed were included in that particular team. The match was played at the Police Park, Colombo and the Under-25 team won by four wickets.