Did Ceylon try a fast one on Don Bradman’s team ?

by Hugh Karunanayake

The last cricketing appearance by Don Bradman in Sri Lanka was at the Colombo Oval on March 31, 1948 before a capacity crowd of 20,000. The Australian Team was on their way to England for the Ashes series and stopped over in Colombo to play a one day game against what was then called the All Ceylon XI – captained by M.Sathasivam. The game was characterised by two major controversies. The first was on the captaincy of the Ceylon team which many thought should have gone to the more experienced and accomplished F.C. de Saram. T.B.Marambe in his book “Pen sketches of our cricketers” thought that “de Saram clearly had not had sufficient contact with the common man” and the selectors preferred the popular Sathasivam instead.

The bigger and longer lasting controversy was on the length of the pitch presented for play. It was only 20 yards long and not 22 yards as required by international rules. Two members of the Ceylon team F.C. de Saram and S.S. Jayewickreme, had noticed the irregular length of the pitch before play began, and brought it to the attention of the authorities. Since the toss had already been made, and the stumps well in place, and possibly to avoid embarrassment, the Colombo Oval authorities deftly brushed aside their concerns insisting that the pitch was of the correct length.

No one took the trouble to take out a tape and measure the pitch. Don Bradman in his book “Farewell to Cricket” said that the pitch was some two yards short and that his suspicions were aroused “because the bowlers came off the pitch too quickly”.The Australians who batted first found the going tough and after their innings closed, Ian Johnson had the pitch measured privately, and found that it was only twenty yards in length. No official complaint was made. When it came to their turn to bowl, the Aussies bowled from two yards behind the crease and restored some level of normalcy. The controversy lingered for some time after the tour, and Jack Fingleton in his book “Brightly fades the Don” speculated that the error may have originated from an innumerate assistant of the ‘female curator’. The mystery remained unsolved in the absence of any authoritative statement from the Ceylon Cricket Association or from the Tamil Union Cricket Club.

Almost 50 years later Mr S. Rajanayagam Honorary Secretary of the Tamil Union in his memoirs “How I became’( Colombo 1997), ventured to explain the mystery behind the short pitch. According to him, there was only one tape measure available in the club. It was a very old one, badly frayed at one end. Whenever it was used, staff compensated for the lack of length at one end by adjusting suitably for the missing portion. He was not sure however what exactly happened on the day in question. What he recalled however was quite sensational. He had been at the Oval during the game and had gone home tired after a long day but was woken up at about 3.30a.m. the following morning by a sleepless Honorary Ground Secretary Rasiah. He appeared quite agitated and had confessed that the pitch used at the game was about a yard short.

On inquiring from him as to whether anyone else was aware of it, Rasiah had told him that Fitzroy Gunasekere of the Survey Department had noticed it and told someone that he was going to measure the pitch in the morning, as he could not do so immediately after the match because the large crowd at the game had rushed on to the grounds. Rasiah had added that if Gunasekere confirmed the error in the length of the wicket, it will receive publicity and there would be trouble and embarrassment ahead. Rajanayagam had thereupon asked Rasiah to “go immediately to the grounds and flood the pitch so that no one else can find out where the wickets had been placed”. This he did, and hoped that the matter would end there.

Not quite so. A letter to the Editor appeared in the Times of Ceylon about a month later referring to the short length of the wicket and complaining that the concerns of the two Ceylonese players de Saram and Jayawickreme went unheeded. No action was taken however, and what remained as an aftermath was the setback to the image of Ceylon’s capacity to organise and host international cricket games.

The match itself ended prematurely due to rain. The Aussies batting first scored 184 for 4 wickets off 60.1 overs and declared, Keith Miller scoring a quick 46, and the Don falling for 20 runs caught R.L. de Kretser bowled B.R.Heyn. All Ceylon were 46 for 2 when rain stopped play. Mahes Rodrigo on his debut scored a fine 26.

What of the world’s first groundswoman? The story that hit international headlines was that the Colombo Oval grounds on which Bradman’s team was about to play was in charge of a female curator – the world’s first woman curator. According to Rajanayagam, that was a furphy. It was a deliberate ploy to attract international attention, and he attributed the origin of the story to the wily Rasiah. The grounds were in fact maintained at the time by a gang of labourers supervised by the groundsman who was quite old and unable to do much physical work. His wife who was much younger, would often do the work expected of him. She was however not in charge of ground maintenance. In later years she did take over the reins from him. When Bob Simpson’s team visited in 1964 she was in charge de jure and hopefully able to measure the length of the wicket accurately as well!