Special Memories of My Skipper Duleep Mendis by Ravi Rudra
Dear Dulla,
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Wishing you a Very Happy 72nd Birthday.
Thank you for the Golden Memories.
God Bless
Ravi Rudra
Special Memories of my Skipper Duleep Mendis
In 1962 (3rd Term fixture) fresher Barney Reid in only his second 1st XI game for STC routs St. Sebastian’s, Moratuwa, at the College grounds for mere 9 runs by taking a staggering 8 wickets for 2 runs. St. Sebastian’s first innings began at 12 noon on the Friday and was destroyed within an hour during our lunch interval.
Barney follows this up with another incredible haul of 8 wkts for 9 runs against Prince of Wales, Moratuwa in the following game. With the mayhem that happened in those couple of weeks, one would have thought, it not only sent shivers among the cricket crazy public of Moratuwa but would have justified all parents, from that suburb, to introduce their children to another sport rather than embarrass themselves on the cricket fields.
However, at the same time a wee-ten year old boy, was just about to embark into Junior cricket at St Sebastian’s and before long, against all odds becomes one of the most famous cricketing icons of both STC and Sri Lanka Cricket. Encouraged by his parents Julian and Doreen Mendis and inspired in particular by his older brother Gerald, Duleep Mendis made his 1st XI
debut as a 15-year old in 1967. Gerald held the batting record in the Prince of Wales – St. Sebastian’s Big Match.
Duleep who began his career as a specialist wicket keeping batsman went onto captain St. Sebastian’s 1st XI at just 16 years in 68/69. He also represented the famous Moratuwa Club, Catamarans in the ‘Donovan Andree’ division against more experienced bowling attacks. For two successive seasons Duleep plundered over 1,000 runs (for School and Club combined) while shattering all kinds of batting records.
Therefore there was tremendous excitement and anticipation among all Thomians when news broke out that Duleep was joining STC, following his O-Levels, for the 1969/70 season.
At the beginning of the 1969 third term, Skipper Prabodha Kariyawasam, perhaps recommended by coach Mr. Lassie Abeywardena, picked three of us (Ranil Abeynaike, Shanmugam Manotharan and me) following a successful under sixteen season to join the first eleven squad.
I turned up for the first practice at the Small Clubs grounds with mixed feelings – extremely nervous about freshers being ragged (thankfully it did not happen) as well as the thrill of being in the presence of several players that I greatly admired including seeing Duleep in action for the first time.
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He did not disappoint as he went about his business with sheer class, confidence and charisma. He was a brilliant wicket keeper too –a natural gloveman, very agile, beautifully economical in his movements.
Mendis was certainly ‘Special’! Who would have thought that seven years after the ‘9-Run’ debacle in 1962 by Barney & Co, a product of St. Sebastian’s Moratuwa, will light up the very Thomian ground for the next three seasons in such a spectacular fashion and demolish bowlers all over!
1971 Season and the Two ‘W’s
My greatest joy during the 1970/71 cricket season was to watch both captain Ravi Sathasivam and Duleep Mendis batting together at the centre wicket during practice under coach and admirer Mr. George Ponniah. They would pierce the packed off-side field with such precision – me (backward point), Arasu Saravanamuttu (cover point), Johnny de Saram (extra cover) and Rajan Saravanamuttu (wide mid-off) often had no chance as the ball sped to the boundary frequently.
While Satha was full of elegant touches, glances and drives on both sides of the wicket, with poise and timing, Duleep was the master of wrist and foot work, especially off the back foot, as well as sheer brutal force with his brilliant eye-hand coordination… square cuts, late cuts, booming cover drives, lofted drives, sweep and pull shots, he had it all. There was a touch of class even when they both defended.
Both seemed to have so much time and at times were compared to the great West Indians of the 1950s – Satha to Frank Worrell and Duleep to Everton Weeks. Looking back now, in terms of potential, the comparison could also be made to the ‘Two Great Richards’ – Satha to South African Opener Barry Richards and Duleep to West Indian Master Blaster, Sir Vivian Richards! Such was their unique talents as schoolboys. Duleep at times has also been compared to India’s “Vishy” (Gundappa Viswanath), who had an elegant and wristy batting style.
Satha and Duleep were at their very best when they combined to annihilate Wesley College in one of the finest partnership at Mount Lavinia. I was watching their breath-taking batting performance from the scorers’ box as they both in an exhibition of the highest class destroyed Tyrone Jansz the fasted bowler in school cricket that year. The faster he bowled the quicker the ball was despatched viciously to the fence – often straight past him peppering both the sightscreen and the college office building ‘Thalassa’ – I could hear the ‘thud’ in the scorers box amidst all the wild cheering going on that Saturday afternoon!
Ravi Satha batting against Ananda College 1971, at Mount …
…Ravi Satha square driving to the fence
1971 Royal-Thomian
The first innings of both Royal and STC at the 1971 Big Match featured some of the finest batting performances from both teams on a good wicket. Royal skipper Jagath Fernando displayed great form and concentration to break Ronnie Reid’s long-standing batting record of 158* set in1956 with an unbeaten 160.
Jagath, Royal College Rugby Captain and former CR and FC and Sri Lanka Flyhalf, was involved in two century partnerships including a record 185 for the 2nd wicket with the Gajan Pathmanathan, an elegant and stylish player, who was unlucky to miss out on a well-deserved century when he was caught and bowled by Sunil Wijeratne for an explosive 97 in just 110 minutes. It was a top class batting performance by both Jagath and Gajan – admired by even the most parochial Thomians. I first witnessed the brilliance of the Gajan (RIP) when he scored a sparkling century (106 in 113 minutes, with 12 fours and 2 sixes) against us in a under 14 match at the small clubs (junior) grounds in June, 1967. A real tragedy that we lost him quite young.
Remarkably, Jagath was associated with four Royal Thomian batting records that year – highest individual score, the first batsman in the series to score a century before lunch, record for the highest partnership for the second wicket of 185 runs and also the batsman who had the highest aggregate in a Royal- Thomian match until that year of 203 (160* and 43).
After Royal declared at 295 runs for 2 wickets at the fall of Gajan’s wicket, shell-shocked STC responded with an impressive 246 for 5 which included
three contrasting but wonderful knocks. Skipper Ravi Sathasivam dazzled us with scintillating strokes in a gem of an innings of 54 – unfortunately cut short by a lapse of concentration following a break in play for a slight drizzle. The cover-drives from Satha that afternoon were exquisite, racing effortlessly to the boundary.
His dependable opening partner Kamal Samarasinghe batted solidly to contribute a valuable 60 before he got run out. Kamal was involved in century partnership with Duleep who scored the first of his two hundreds in a Big Match. “Cometh the hour, cometh the man” – when the situation is challenging, Duleep is the man the Thomians could count on to deliver, and he delivered an unbeaten 103* in fine style – an innings of real character, discipline and determination!
In Jagath Fernando, Gajan Pathmanathan. Ravi Sathasivam, Duleep Mendis and Kamal Samarasinghe we witnessed some of the best and stylish batsmen of that era.
Jagath made a typical bold declaration in the second innings setting a sporting target of 163 and at one stage the Thomians were sitting pretty at 80 for 1, but a brilliant diving catch by Jayaweera in the covers to get rid of Duleep caused panic among the middle order. However, with the help of Arasu Saravanamuttu 15* and for the second year in a row tail-ender Sunil Wijeratne having to face a nervous few deliveries, with his customary forward defence that almost kisses the ground, STC held out to a nail-biting draw with the score at 128 for 8. Exciting game in the end.
1971 RT Score Summary:
Royal 1st Innings: 295 for 2 declared (Jagath Fernando 160*, Gajan Pathmanathan 97)
STC 1st Innings: 246 for 5 declared (Ravi Sathasivam 54, Kamal Samarasinghe 60, Duleep Mendis 103*, Asitha Jayaweera 3 for 64)
Royal 2nd Innings: 113 for 3 declared (Jagath Fernando 43, Gajan Pathmanathan 35, G.D.V. Perera 2 for 39)
STC 2nd Innings: 128 for 8 declared (Ravi Sathasivam 26, Kamal Samarasinghe 35, Duleep Mendis 31, Asitha Jayaweera 2 for 30, H.S. Yapa 4 for 52)
Result: Drawn
Heroes from the 1956 Royal-Thomian
Jagath Fernando (RC) and Duleep Mendis (STC) emulated the unique feat of centuries from both teams in a Royal-Thomian – achieved by T. Jothilingam (RC) and Ronald Reid (STC) in 1956 and previously by F.C. de Saram (RC) and N.A. de S. Wijesekera (STC) in 1931.
Build-up to the 1972 Royal-Thomian
Our top trio of Duleep, Kamal Samarasinghe and Ranil Abeynaike had missed the best part of the opening games of the 71 /72 season as all three were making valuable contribution to the Ceylon Schools Team against a strong Australian Schools team that had players of the calibre of Graham Yallop and Ray Bright, future Australian test stars.
As captain of the 72 STC team Duleep carried tremendous responsibility over a relatively young and inexperienced team. On his first game back from national duty he scored a superb unbeaten 98 against Ananda in an unbroken partnership of 152 for the 2nd wicket with Kamal, when he declared unselfishly, just two short of a classy century. In the next game
against St. Joseph’s on a tricky wicket the top order collapsed against Rajiv Benedict and co in a low scoring drawn game dominated by the bowlers.
Although we beat Trinity the following week thanks to a good team-effort in the final game before the Royal Thomian against Roy Dias’s St. Peter’s there was a bit of pressure on Duleep to fire. After dismissing St Peter’s cheaply in the first innings Duleep was lying down in the dressing room with his pads on when the first wicket fell. He then marched out and plundered the Peterite bowling attack to all parts of the field with a brilliant 112. The skipper however was more delighted that the crop of freshers L.P. de Silva, Manotharan and Johnny de Saram (batting at 4, 5 & 6) had all contributed with the bat and young spinners Ajith Abeygunawardena and Ravi Abeywardene had bowled superbly to dismiss St Peter’s cheaply in the second innings – trouncing SPC by an Innings.
Leading sports writer T.M.K. Samat wrote, “As a preview before the ‘Big Confrontation’ at the Oval, everything came out glowingly for the Thomians. Last week, the Thomians not only triumphed handsomely over the Peterites, but clearly, outmatched Royal’ success over the Peterites earlier this season. In these final days before the game they’ve waited the whole year for – days in which the team live in hope, fear and tension, a success like the one the Thomians achieved last week can have tremendous psychological advantage. But that apart the most heart-swelling aspect of it comes from the knowledge that they have emerged a team built on the talent of all eleven and not just a few personalities which was the case earlier this season…….But against Royal a team which must rank the best in the School now, the challenges and situations the Thomians will face are certain to be different than their sweeping advances in the past two weeks…. This team will be hard put to match the Thomian team of 1964 – which was when they last won over Royal. It was skippered by Premalal Gunasekera, in later years produced Representative cricketers in Anura Tennekoon, Sarath Seneviratne, Sriantha Rajapakse and Mevan Pieris.”
Score Summary:
St Peter’s 1st Innings: 70 (N. Wiratunga 16, D. Martin 15, H.D.K. Silva 2 for 9, Ranil Abeynaike 5 for 19)
STC 1st Innings: 300 for 6 declared (A.D.H. Samaranayake 24, Duleep Mendis 112, L.P de Silva 49, S. Manotharan 22, F.J. ‘Johnny’ de Saram 49*, Ranil Abeynaike 27, M. Abeysekera 3 for 77)
St Peter’s 2nd Innings: 93 (R. Obeysekera 19, Roy Dias 22, L. Jobsz 13, M. Abeysekera 13*, Ajith Abeygunawardena 4 for 28 Ravi Abeywardene 4 for 21)
Result: STC won by an innings and 137 runs.
1972 Royal-Thomian
Following the win over St. Peter’s we played a midweek practice game at SSC against a fairly strong club team assembled by head coach P.I. ‘Ian’ Pieris and included PI as well as both our assistant coaches Neil Chanmugam and Mevan Pieris – all three top international class bowlers. Against this strong attack Duleep scored a confident sixty including two effortless sixes over mid-wicket sweeping Neil from possibly outside the off-stump, while I failed and was justifiably named 12th man for the Royal- Thomian.
For the first time that year (1972) it was arranged that the whole squad be accommodated in the arts room (next to the dining hall) at College from Thursday to Sunday morning, with the RT being played on Friday and Saturday.
We had our final practice at the Colombo Oval on Thursday and we all gathered at the college makeshift ‘bunker’. I vividly remember the steely determination in Dulla’s eyes. The press were pretty much touting “get Duleep early and STC would crumble!” They rated Royal under Asitha’s astute captaincy as a much better all round team. Not sure why when we had the calibre of Kamal, Ranil, HDK Silva who were also part of the Ceylon Schools squad, and lot of talent in rest of the team.
The greatness of any sportsman is to perform and execute their skills to their very best under immense pressure, and no doubt this was the going to be the biggest challenge for Duleep on the big stage. Following what may have been a radio interview on sports roundup Duleep mentioned that evening around 7.30 pm that he was having a slight temperature and took a couple of disprins. I wondered at that time if it was all the pressure and tension building up to the big match.
Duleep borrowed a two rupee gold-coin from me in the dressing room just before he walked out for the toss. From the moment he went out to toss I could sense something special was to unfold – He returned to the pavilion, delighted having won the crucial toss and deciding to bat first. He seemed calm and confident as he returned the coin and started strapping his pads.
Kamal Samarasinghe who had been in very good form that season for both College and the Ceylon Schools opened the batting with vice-captain ADH Samaranayaka (Sam). To our utter disbelief Kamal got out without troubling the scorers when he nicked one behind and with the score 1 for 1 (one coming off a wide) in just the second over. While the Royal supporter were jubilant there was nothing but dead silence and high tension in our dressing room. All eyes were on Duleep as he put on his ‘Blue, Black & Blue’ Thomian cap and walked to the middle in his inimitable swagger – yes he had that swagger much before Viv Richards!
The Rest as they say is ‘History’
He played himself in and before long started to get on top of the bowling with Sam looking solid at the other end. At the first water break after 45 minutes when I carried the drinks to the middle the score was already around 50/1 with Duleep well set in his 30s. I could clearly detect from those steely eyes, the strong determination and that something really extraordinary was about to unfold.
He was feeling very confident as he took some sips of ‘Necto’, wiped his brow and told me in Sinhala “Adha mang thennang Relay Carnival” (Today I will give them Relay Carnival!). In other words there will be a massive leather hunt coming up shortly. And boy what unfolded over the next three hours of batting was an exhibition of the highest class against a really good spin attack led by Asitha Jayaweera and well supported by both Jayantha Amerasinghe and Samuel Lawton.
It was a freakish innings of sheer brilliance and total dominance. It was another occasion when on the big stage under extreme pressure he had
executed all his skills and made sure his bat did all the talking loud and clear!
Keeping Duleep hydrated during his epic 184!
It was a wonderful privilege to have been part of Duleep’s team, even as a mere 12th man at the 1972 Royal-Thomian, carrying drinks to him during his epic 184.
Records Galore!
In making 184 (two-thirds of the Thomian 1st innings score!) he broke Jagath Fernando’s superb 160 not out, set the previous year. He scored over 100 runs in the afternoon session between lunch and tea going from 75 to 184.
Also in scoring two consecutive Royal-Thomian centuries, Duleep joined the company of Royalist Neil Joseph who in 1925 scored his first RT century, a magnificent 113 made in only 65 minutes, followed up with 133 in 1926.
Duleep also emerged with the highest aggregate in the RT Series by compiling 386 runs in six innings (for a staggering Bradman like average of 96.5), while improving on Ronald Reid’s aggregate of 325.
1972 RT Score Summary:
STC 1st Innings: 286 for 9 declared (Duleep Mendis 184, A.D.H. Samaranayaka 39, Ranil Abeynaike 27, S.A. de Silva 3 for 51, Asitha Jayaweera 3 for 75)
Royal 1st Innings: 267 for 8 declared (S.A. de Silva 91 run out, Asitha Jayaweera 53, Ajith Abeygunawardena 2 for 57, Ranil Abeynaike 2 for 79)
STC 2nd Innings: 124 for 2 declared (Kamal Samarasinghe 30, A.D.H. Samaranayaka 29, Duleep Mendis 30*, L.P. de Silva 14*)
Royal 2nd Innings: 8 for no loss
Result: Drawn
The last occasion I met Duleep was on 14 March1992 at the Basin Reserve, Wellington (20 years after his heroics at the Colombo Oval) during the World Cup when he was coach of Sri Lanka and I was working for BP Oil (NZ).
Captained by Arjuna Ranatunga, who scored a valiant 64*, Sri Lanka that day beat a strong South African team that had ‘white-lightening’ Alan Donald at his quickest especially when he knocked out the top three batsmen cheaply.
Soon after the game I was in the Sri Lankan dressing room when Peter Kirsten came in to sportingly shake hands with everyone including Duleep and finally me, dressed in a blazer and tie, mistaken as part of the Sri Lankan Management Team!!
These are wonderful fresh memories of a Champion Cricketer and a Champion Gentleman who was head and shoulders above most of his contemporaries and yet was always a man of few words filled with genuine humility and kindness. He dazzled us with dynamism, dedication and determination!
When the legendary Indian-born English Cricketer Duleepsinhji retired from cricket through recurring illness, Wisden wrote of him: “Of singular charm of character; extremely modest of his own wonderful ability; and with a love for the game which transcended his joy in all other pastimes,
He will always be remembered as one of the outstanding personalities during his period.” Wisden could copy and paste exactly the same expressions of our own Duleep!
It gives me tremendous pleasure in wishing Duleep the very best of health, happiness, peace and continued success on his special 70th Birthday.
My Best Wishes also to his soulmate Dilhara and rest of his loving family. God Bless! – Ravi Rudra (STC 1st XI, 1971/72 to 1972/73)
