Australia vs Ceylon at the Colombo Oval in March 1953 … and Constantine-by Michael Roberts Source:Thuppahis In focusing on Learie Constantine’s spell as a coach in the island in 1953 I was prompted initially by his report on the one-day encounter between the Australian cricket team led by Lindsay Hassett and a Ceylon team, a “whistle-stop game” as it was known then because the Aussies played such matches on their way to England by ship on several occasions dating from the early decades of the 20th century. The details of this encounter were presented in 1998 in the book Crosscurrents. Sri Lanka and Australia at Cricket, by Michael Roberts & Alfred James under the cover of Walla Walla Press.[1] I was able to present such reports because of my convivial interaction with one of Sri Lanka’s star batsman, CH ‘Channa’ Gunasekara, whose scrapbook was a goldmine of news cuttings.[2] These details include reviews of ...
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Socio-Political Insights from Views of the Aussie-Ceylon Match in 1938-by Michael Roberts The recent entry in THUPPAHI on Lindsay Hassett has underlined certain strands within the history of Sri Lanka in the 1930s to 1950 through the background scenery displayed by the photographs deployed therein. These glimpses must be interpreted with some understanding of the political economy and geography of the decades spanning the 1920s-to-1950s. My work on People Inbetween (1989) has underlined the degree to which the Colombo metropolitan arena was a hegemonic centre which drew migrants from most parts of the island as well as trading communities from parts of India. The first four maps in that book[i] …. drawn largely with the help of my old mates in the Geography Departments of Ceylon University, viz. Kusuma Gunawardena and Percy Silva …. provide keen readers with a set of ‘snapshot readings’ of this weightage – even though they depict a scenario in the year 1971 ...
DON BRADMAN AND HIS MEN IN CEYLON – by Neville Jayaweera An essay from the book “Essaying Cricket Sri Lanka and Beyond” authored by Michael Roberts Source:Adelaideaz The image of Don Bradman exercised almost a mesmeric hold over the imagination of my generation, i.e. of those born in the 1930s, in (then) Ceylon. The dominion he exercised was so absolute that even now, sixty something years on, most of that generation would claim that there never was and never will be anyone like the Don taking guard at a batting crease. Speaking for myself, having watched cricket in England during the past thirty summers that I have been living here, I can vouch that no batsman I have seen ever came nigh Bradman. Neither in run getting nor in amassing statistics, neither in the capacity to concentrate nor in the fleetness of foot, neither in the murderous power of driving ...
Dec 17, 2020
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Tagged Alan Davidson, Bill Ponsford, Bill Woodfull, Bob Simpson, Charlie Macartney, Essaying Cricket Sri Lanka and Beyond, even Denis Lillee, Keith Miller, Lindsay Hassett, Michael Roberts, Neil Harvey, Neville Jayaweera, Richie Benaud, Warwick Armstrong
