The Legend of Pradeep Mathew (16 page)

When the game was introduced in the colonies two centuries ago, the fat masters batted all day, while the emaciated slaves bowled. At charity amusements, the lady folk were relegated to bowling, their impractical hoop dresses leading to the invention of the over-arm action. Centuries later, bowling still remains a thankless job. But thanks to a few it may also have become something of an art.

By the beginning of ’97, we have all forgotten about documentaries. We are too busy watching cricket. For the past year Sri Lanka has been thrashing everyone in sight. Pakistan, Australia, India and South Africa. Ari remains unimpressed, claiming that only one of these victories took place outside of Asia.

I am thinking of turning Pradeep Mathew into a book when Brian comes calling. ‘Uncles. Shall we do the doco now?’

Brian is now wearing sunglasses that cost more than my entire wardrobe. The past year has been a good one for him. He has been getting a regular gig with Maharani TV.

‘Now that I have contacts, I can get interviews.’

‘Only if we do one on Mathew,’ I say.

‘I don’t think SLBCC will approve a show on Mathew.’

‘So? Tell them to hang. I have five lakhs left from betting money.’

‘No need for the money. I will get funding. You get me the scripts done.’

‘Only if we do one on Mathew.’

‘Forget Mathew,’ says Brian. ‘We will call it “Lanka’s Top 5 Super Best” …’

‘We will call it “Chinaman: Sri Lanka’s Greatest Unsung Hero”,’ I suggest.

Now whenever Ari comes over to help with the scripts, he brings over a coloured concoction in an Elephant House bottle. This one looks like blood, even though he tells me it is watermelon mixed with lime.

The fool had made a vow to Manouri and his five daughters that if Lanka won the Cup, he would give up booze and cigarettes. Instead of doing what any red-blooded, lily-livered man would do, that is, find a loophole to wiggle out of, Ari kept his word. ‘A Thomian’s word is his honour.’

He replaces gin with thambili, whisky with kola kenda, and Gold Leaf with fruit. And refrains from grumbling. I ask him how he’s coping.

‘Fair exchange, Wije. To see Ranatunga hammer Warne over the ropes with 44 balls to spare is worth all the arrack in arrackland.’

Who can argue?

‘Do you know what I found in my filing cabinet?’

‘Termites?’

‘All those tapes that Mrs Kolombage got for us. You had forgotten about them, no?’

The next two months are bliss.

We sit at Jonny’s and pore over the televised history of Sri Lankan cricket since 1978, the year of televisation. We spend a week there. No wives. Jonny and I boozing. Ari juicing. The lake reflecting orange into Jonny’s veranda. Ten hours of cricket watching behind you. And hundreds more before you. I cannot think of a better description of heaven.

*  *  *

The three twenty-minute pieces on the World Cup heroes are effortless. Everyone Brian interviews has plenty to say about Captain Cool, Mad Max and the Master Blaster.

We then set to work researching Satha and Mathew. There is some useable footage of Mathew’s thirty-four-match career, but obviously none of Satha’s which ended in 1951.

Mahadevan Sathasivam was jailed for the murder of his wife in the early 1950s. It is universally accepted that he was innocent; that his wife, cognisant of his numerous affairs, was granting him a divorce; that the real murderer was William, the domestic aid. That’s right, apparently the butler did it.

Those cuckolded by Satha’s amorous activities or slighted on the field by his delicate blade were glad to see the playboy batting hero get his comeuppance. Having controversially captained Sri Lanka vs Bradman’s Invincibles, Satha went on to captain Singapore and Malaysia, perhaps the only man to captain three countries at the sport.

Opinion on his character was divided. Praise of his deft strokes and fleet footwork was unanimous. Sir Frank Worrell described him as the best batsman he had ever seen.

Pradeep Mathew elicited no such outpouring of anecdote. Those who remembered him, remembered him vaguely. Everyone seemed surprised by his death, but none too concerned.

*  *  *

Brian is too busy interviewing players and pundits and ex-players and ex-pundits to find a sponsor. Jonny says he knows the media director at SwarnaVision, a state-of-the-art channel not belonging to the state. He says they have huge budgets, international sponsors, studios and directors from India.

The meeting is set up and we take our five scripts, our three films and our waning enthusiasm to plush offices in Pannipitiya. I don’t bother to iron my shirt or shine my shoes. We are kept waiting for half an hour and then greeted by a blood-curdling polkatu accent.

‘To what, pray tell, do we owe this pleasure?’ says Rakwana Somawardena, newly appointed director of SwarnaVision.

‘A pleasant surprise,’ says Cassim.

‘Surprise, surprise,’ says Mrs Kolombage.

*  *  *

I stayed away from the production. Sponsors had been obtained and while the scripts survived unscathed, additions were made to the production which I didn’t understand. They were employing a computer graphics division and had commissioned composer Dilup Makalande and his guitar-shaped keyboard.

Ari seemed excited and I left him to it. He got his daughters, Stephanie and Melissa, both drama teachers, involved in set design and wardrobe. Sheila tells me that Stephanie, the tall one, is divorced and carrying on with a married man. Melissa, the round-faced one, is a local nightclub queen. Ari, as usual, is oblivious to all this.

*  *  *

I dream of trishaws. I am in the back of what appears to be Jabir’s red one. I am reaching for a bottle at my feet which keeps rolling from my grasp. I ask the driver to slow down. He speeds up. I scold. He turns around and holds up his hand. ‘How many fingers am I holding? How many fingers?’ I recognise his shaggy hair. He is Pradeep Mathew. ‘I thought you were dead,’ I say. ‘We will all be soon,’ he says, and drives into Beira Lake.

*  *  *

After all that drama with the World Cup betting, we don’t even use any of the spoils. SwarnaVision agrees to finance. They say they will pay for the scripts and for Brian’s interview footage. Brian agrees on the condition that he is retained as presenter. I agree on the condition that a Mathew episode is shot.

We sign documents, hand over our footage and wait.

The cracks in Ms 2ndGeneration’s political regime, which we voted in three years earlier to deliver us from civil war and economic ruin, are starting to show. There are rumours of impending power cuts as droughts cripple our hydro power catchment areas and war rages in the north and east.

We are finally allowed to see a rough cut in October. It is unveiled for the board of directors of SwarnaVision in the boardroom on the seventh floor.

We take our seats and make nervous jokes. The film opens with Sir Garfield Sobers talking about Sri Lanka’s talent. Music that is glorious, but somehow inappropriate, swells to a crescendo as Brian reads out my intro line: ‘For Sri Lankans, cricket is not a game of gentlemen. It is a game of geniuses …’

The action cuts back to Sir Garfield, who is now talking about Aravinda de Silva. The shot reverses to show the interviewer nodding ponderously with furrowed brow.

Cassim and Mrs Kolombage giggle with surprise. I look at Ari in horror. The interviewer is not Brian. The man with the microphone is not tall, dark and funny looking. He is short, fair and speaks with an accent.

Brian gets up from his seat and, before the SwarnaVision board of directors, in raised voice, with raised finger, begins describing the genitalia of Rakwana’s mother.

*  *  *

‘He only took cricket seriously because of a girl,’ says Kamal Kiriella.

Kiriella works in finance, sweats a lot, and gives the impression that he sleeps in his tie. He is a busy man so I have to go to his office, where I am served biscuits and given fifteen minutes.

‘You are a relative or what?’

Kamal and Pradeep met at an Old Royalists Law vs Medicine match.

‘Our buggers, any excuse for a match. Half the buggers weren’t doctors or lawyers. I don’t remember Pradeep ever being at Royal.’

They then tried out for the Hampshire University XI in ’84. Neither made the grade, but both made the squad.

Kamal has few illusions about his abilities. ‘We were fresh off the boat. Pradeep bowled googly. I hammered pol adi. We were unfit, lazy buggers. They just kept us in the squad because we were brown.’

Pradeep had been sent to his mother’s sister in Southampton. He enrolled to study accounting. Which he changed to computing. Which he then changed to physics.

‘Moody bugger. Didn’t get on with the aunt. Didn’t mix much with the suddhas. He had one friend, this tall physics nerd, that was it.’

In what was neither the first nor last example of serendipity in Mathew’s life, the University 2nd XI happened to be practising at the county ground alongside the visiting Lankan team. The students were asked to bowl at Mendis, Dias, Wettimuny, Madugalle et. al, who, though international test cricketers, were unknown outside of the Sinhalese Sports Club.

‘Matty had real talent. Real talent. Fellow played the fool. Can you imagine? He bowled to the national side in the style of Ian Botham. He imitated each of the English bowlers. Agnew, Allot, Ellison, Pocock. The whole Lankan team were stunned.’

Pradeep and Kamal were invited to the Lankan High Commissioner’s house for a rice and curry dinner. The Minister was present, as was the manager Abu Chanmugam, who asked Pradeep if he would like to try out for the national team. Pradeep smiled and declined.

‘No one asked me. I suppose Lanka had enough and more pol adi batsmen,’ reasons Kamal.

Throughout this monologue, several boys in ties bring Kamal papers to sign. He does so without breaking eye contact or breaking narrative.

Outside I hear someone shouting at a peon. You can tell a lot about an organisation by how they treat their peons.

Several cricketers came up to them and asked Pradeep about his effortless action mimicry and his promising chinaman bowling. But Pradeep, ill at ease in mixed company, said little.

Batsman Wettimuny, on the eve of a career-defining century, thanked the boys for bowling at them. ‘I feel I have already faced the English attack. You should improve your talent.’

The skipper got drunk and started a baila. Those days Sri Lankan cricketers weren’t afraid of making fools of themselves in public. This they did on the field on a regular basis.

Kamal Kiriella describes the party as ‘full arthal’ and ‘maara jolly’. Aside from the cricketers there were Sri Lankan families and their sons and daughters. Mathew followed a group of them upstairs, drunken baila clearly not his thing. Kamal tagged along.

‘These British Lankan chicks you should see, ah? Full sexy, but also hi-fi.’

It was in the High Commissioner’s office that Mathew saw the girl of his dreams. Away from the festivities, the expat kids were watching a show called
Top of the Pops.

‘These two sexy girls were dancing like … what’s that woman with the hair …’

‘Boney M?’

‘No, men. Cyndi Lauper! That’s the one.’

I nod as if the name had been on my tongue’s tip.

‘The hot one sat down; the chubby one, Shirali, the High Commissioner’s daughter, was begging people to dance. No one would.’

According to Kamal, Shirali was a ‘tease’ and everyone was taking her for a ‘bite’. It was supposed to be her farewell, as her father was about to be transferred back to Sri Lanka.

‘Then suddenly our man jumps in, pulls her, and starts break-dancing. He couldn’t dance for toffee, but everyone thought he was being a clown. After that, he starts chatting to Shirali. Didn’t even know the bugger could chat up.’

When it was time to go, Shirali kissed him on the cheek to roars from the expat kids. ‘He’s the only cute guy at this party,’ said Shirali. Mathew turned ‘pink like a jambu’. They shared a ride home with batsman Roy Dias who invited Pradeep to another team practice. Pradeep said he would think about it and showed Kamal a piece of paper with a number written on it.

‘I told him, it’s only ‘cos she thinks you’re a cricketer. Once she finds out you’re flatting with seven illegal Tamils in Southampton, see if she thinks you’re cute.’