By Emil van der Poorten...
The recent passing of an old school-mate, M.C. (Malsiri) Kurakulasooriya has provoked me into an attempt at recounting some of his athletic exploits and those of a couple other of our contemporaries. A fuller description of their conduct at “The best school of all,” might have proved more entertaining but I think that, in the interests of all concerned, I should restrict myself to speaking to their accomplishments with bat and/or ball.
Malsiri, or “Male” as he was more often referred to by those who associated with him closely was probably one of the most classical stroke-players in the history of Trinity cricket or in the annals of Sri Lankan cricket, for that matter.
I remember him practicing his strokes, and he had them all, over and over again both while at the wicket during a match and in the nets. This was a part of his “drill” all the time. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he didn’t play every shot he polished interminably even in his sleep, such was the manner in which he applied himself to playing all the classical strokes all round the wicket.
He certainly played the prettiest strokes of any batsman of his time, if not all time, in Sri Lankan schoolboy cricket and as an adult in club and national competition.
I left Trinity before he did and though our paths did cross after ten years for a brief time, we never really renewed the friendship that had begun in class and in Under 14 competition. I did try to involve him in the affairs of the Canada-Sri Lanka Association in Toronto in the early seventies when he was, if I remember right, working for the glass giant Pilkington, but with no success.
I meant to visit him after my return to Sri Lanka a few years back but, as with so many of such intentions, didn’t.
However, I will carry with me to the grave, the memories of “Male’s” elegance with the willow. I don’t remember any of similar grace before or after him.
Another old schoolmate, with whom I shared “classmate” status for many years, beginning with matron’s dormitory and Junior School was Mohammed Uvais Odayar. He had the greatest hand/eye co-ordination of anyone that I encountered in any sport either in school or subsequently and I believe I’ve participated in and spectated at more sporting events than most.
“Odi” was phenomenal: there’s no other word to describe him. I remember him as a truly brilliant fielder in the slips who would flip a low flying batsman’s “snick” into the air and then calmly grasp the ball, making an incredibly difficult catch look like the simplest of tasks. Given the kind of performance one was witness to, what was even more impressive was the nonchalance with which he performed the task. He made it look simple and easy and to me that is the true measure of a great athlete: the ability to make the most difficult task look pedestrian.
“Odi” would have scored oodles of runs too, if he was left to his own devices and allowed to wield the “cross bat” with which he despatched so many bowlers to the square leg boundary and over it. But I do remember P.H.T. de Silva, “Tuffy” being one of the less-obnoxious nicknames by which he was recognised, trying to force Odayar into the mould of an orthodox batsman (like Malsiri Kurakulasooriya, perhaps.)
Tuffy didn’t succeed but you disobeyed him at your peril and I use that word with full knowledge of its connotations! Odi feared Theodore de Silva as did we all and his attempts to “follow orders” did, I am sure, result in his scoring but a fraction of the runs he would otherwise put on the board if left to do things “his way.”
And Odi’s skills were not confined to the cricket pitch. He was one of the finest full-backs that Trinity rugby ever produced and he more than held his own in, perhaps, Trinity’s all time greatest rugby team, captained by David Frank and coached by Bertie Dias, in the mid-fifties.
It was a time when a player’s ability to find touch was not constrained by the rule that militated against kicking out from anywhere but behind one’s own (at the time) 25-yard line. And Odi learned and practiced a kicking technique that was introduced into Sri Lanka by a South African, John Arenhold, who was I believe, a Cambridge or Oxford “Blue” and an International to boot.
John would kick from just inside the touch line for long distances with the ball carrying well into the opponent’s territory and then veering into touch. Odi picked up on this technique and soon perfected it and used it often, to the obvious discomfiture of Trinity’s opponents. I do not recall any other player in the schools or in the club circuit who had this technique down pat as did Odi.
Ken de Joodt and he were in the same class, if I remember right, beginning in Standard Two. He was a natural athlete but it was only as a senior that he blossomed as a rugby player. I don’t recall a school or club rugby player who could corkscrew through the opposition as Ken could. I recall the times that the laws of physics caught up with him and his lean body was such that his feet slid out from under him. There were perhaps, other rugby players before and since, both in the schools and clubs, who displayed this running style but I don’t think there was one so deceptive and elusive as Ken.
A close buddy of Ken’s was Michael de Alwis, particularly during their latter years at Trinity.I remember Michael as one who could take punishment both on the rugby field and in the boxing ring like no other. Lakdasa Moonemalle, who never forgave me for his one loss in house competitions, had a punch that was akin to the kick of the proverbial mule. Lucky was light but boy could he punch! I avoided him to the extent possible at boxing practice because he didn’t spar, He came after you as if his life depended on inflicting massive punishment on his (temporary) opponent. Michael de Alwis would volunteer to spar with Lucky and more than that hardly need be said to anyone who knew the temperament that Moonemalle displayed in the ring!
In later years, Mike had a dodgy shoulder and a jaw that shared the same characteristic: they’d both dislocate. This hardly fazed Michael. I distinctly remember playing against him when he was the hooker for the “Merrie Men of Uva” in the 1960s when, in the one match, he dislocated his jaw and his shoulder. Each time, he’d pop his jaw and his shoulder back into place, rolling on the ground to affect the former exercise and using his hands to get his jaw back in place. I am told that most people are incapacitated for a considerable time after popping their jaw (or shoulder) back into place. Not Mike. He’d continue playing as if it was the commonest little injury that, perhaps, was hardly deserving of a Band Aid!
Each of these school and class-mates was a truly unique athlete. None of them received the kind of adulation that many of those achieving eminence in rugby or cricket do today. But that does not in any way detract from their achievements a half century ago.
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