The Legend of Pradeep Mathew (26 page)

De Kretser’s log, prodigious in its detailing of mic circuitry, offers precious little help in deciphering the shakily recorded dressing room mutterings.

He finally got it right in 1964, when Polonnowita and Lieverz bundled out a touring Pakistan side to give Sri Lanka a rare victory.

Each ball is clearly punctuated by the call of ‘Well bowled, sir,’ by gentleman keeper H.I.K. Fernando, in a time well before sledging.

The West Indian tour in 1966/67 is also well captured. Though it is difficult to distinguish between the calypso lilts of the Sobers, Kallicharrans and Lloyds. Snippets from these games and from unidentifiable domestic games feature on this spool.

The tone of entries is scientific and dry. It is unclear whether this logbook, covering almost twenty years, was kept out of boredom or Cold War paranoia.

The
Daily News
of October 1973 reported the death of Harold Bertram West de Kretser. An old boy of St Peter’s, an engineer during the war, survived by a wife and two daughters. The logbook stops there.

Spool No 2 is titled ‘1970–1981. Taml NaDu, Gpalan Trophhy, Robet Senanyake, Tropphy, Inidia U-19, DH Robin IX’. The handwriting is less assured. The rest of the spools are marked in this hand.

Before I proceed I should tell you that the squadron guarding Colombo in 1942 were Canadians, not British. They claimed to have shot down fourteen planes, but only three metal carcasses were found. There was no ‘jolly ole chap’ business. Pilot McDonald was carried from the plane with minor burns and taken to a nursing home, where he asked for whisky and instead received iced tea.

Isn’t my version a lot better?

Hewman Neiris kept no such journal, though he kept recording matches and then editing the highlights, just as old man de Kretser had taught him. His unmarked spool collection includes every match played at the unmentioned venue.

‘Hewman? As in Human?’

‘I think it’s a cross between Herman and Hubert.’

‘How do you know his name?’

‘I met Neiris the midget during a 1986 Pakistan test match.’

‘Are you making this up?’

‘I was asleep under a bo tree.’

‘You are making this up.’

Let us assume you accept this Hewman Neiris underground recording nonsense. Would you buy that a crazy midget, who had spent his life hiding and preserving secret recordings, would entrust a grinning trishaw driver and a balding maths teacher with his life’s work?

‘He’s gone to Kataragama temple with his saasthara woman. Jabir let me borrow this for the weekend.’

‘The saasthara woman who gives you betting tips?’

‘That one only.’

‘She gets her tips from the betting gods in Kataragama?’

Jabir is wearing a cap saying Ion Mayden. For once he is not grinning. ‘Ari sir. Must return before Monday. Neiris Uncle will curse us.’

My head is twirling.

‘How do you know the midget?’ I ask Jabir.

‘I fix his wires. I am electrical man.’

Ari frowns and Jabir reverts to Sinhala. He tells us that Neiris hired him to do the wiring in the scoreboards and in the pavilion.

‘Wiring what?’

Jabir sits on my stool and eyes us both sternly.

‘Uncle told me he would curse me if I ever told.’

‘But he can’t even speak properly.’

‘I can understand.’

Aside from episodes under bo trees, I only knew the midget as one of the shabby people that populated local games. A grumpy 4 feet snack seller, who would scramble between seats with a tray of cadju hanging from his neck. Always annoyed if people didn’t have the right change. He had barked at me in his mute yawp on several occasions.

‘He’s only half-dumb, Wije,’ says Ari. ‘When he wants he can say few words. But he’s not deaf.’

‘If he’s eavesdropping on games, I suppose not.’

‘Wije sir. You must promise not to tell anyone about this,’ says Jabir. ‘Neiris Uncle could get in trouble.’

‘He’s the groundsman. Can’t he do what he likes?’

‘He hasn’t been the groundsman there for thirty years,’ says Ari.

Shortly after de Kretser’s death, a professional groundsman was employed, though Neiris was kept on the staff as a gardener and coolie. No one knew of his underground hobbies. People had bigger irrelevancies to care about.

Aside from his saasthara lady, only one other person knew how to enter Neiris’s secret cavern. The man who had saved his life – a skinny, grinning, kind-hearted trishaw driver.

Ten years ago, Jabir found Neiris at a bus stop, surrounded by excitable bystanders, having a diabetic fit. He popped the midget into his three-wheeler, took him to Panadura Central Hospital, and kept an eye on him for the next few months.

‘The fellow had no one. Wife died. Son killed by the army in ’71.’

Neiris let Jabir visit him in the bunker, but had him sworn to secrecy, though how the mute communicated with the man who never shuts up is a mystery. Neiris Uncle found him electrical work around the neighbourhood and the two became friends.

Last month, Jabir visited the midget to find him livid. The saasthara woman told him the spool machine was broken. Neiris Uncle might not be able to record the upcoming domestic season. He asked Jabir if he could fix spool machines. Jabir mentioned the name of a maths teacher in Mount Lavinia who might be able to help.

‘How did he know you stole ITL’s spool machine?’ I ask Ari, who is playing recordings and taking notes as I type. That’s right. I am typing.

‘How should I know?’

‘Did you have conversations with the midget when you got your betting tips?’

‘He’s half-mute. How many times to tell you? He can make noises and mouth a few words.’

‘Maybe he writes words on a chalkboard.’

‘What?’

‘Or maybe he collects words he needs from the spools, splices them together and plays the sentence back. Fix … my … spool … machine.’

‘Now you’re being silly, Wije.’

While I was in hospital, Jabir took Ari to the bunker. Neiris refused to let him in unless Ari agreed to be blindfolded. Ari was taken down a metal ladder to a darkened room, where a spotlight was shining on a broken spool machine.

‘Over fifty years old. Can’t believe it was still working. I told them I would have to return with my tools.’

On his way out, Ari secretly slipped a spool into his raincoat and brought it home. It was sound bites from the 1985 test vs India, our first test victory.

‘Could hear all the Gavaskars and Madan Lals cursing our umpiring.’

Jabir is shocked. ‘You stole from Neiris Uncle?’

‘Relax, Jabba. I returned it afterwards.’

Ari used every trickle of Byrd charm and offered to transcribe the spools for posterity. Neiris grunted his disapproval. He threatened to rain curses down on whoever exposes his bunker. That, I suppose, would be me.

Jabir lets me in on the scoop with reluctance. I am only allowed to write about it if I can disguise the place well enough. I fear the last bit may need work.

A few days ago, while the midget was hospitalised for diabetes, Jabir let Ari into the bunker.

‘Wije, I tell you, it was a dingy, cobwebbed, smelly place. But it was filled with treasure.’

‘Sort of like your room.’

‘Funny. More like a museum. Antique mics and headphones. I wanted to steal it all. Just joking, Jabba. That equipment won’t last much longer. Neither will the dwarf.’

‘Midget. Where do you enter from?’

‘Ask Jabir.’

Jabir gets to his feet and shakes his head.

‘Neiris Uncle says he will burn the bunker if I tell anyone.’

‘Ari, can’t you smuggle a camera down there and take some snaps?’

‘And be cursed forever by the dwarf? Not me.’

The midget’s spools contained 80 per cent garbage. Transcribing them was an exercise in tedium. Most of the dressing room chats were mundane and the onfield banter unintelligible. But hidden among this aural mess were three pieces of crucial Mathew-related information.

In the absence of a holy grail, the midget’s spools represent the real prize of this story. I sometimes wonder if the recordings of Pradeep defending his sportsmanship were not forged by Jabir and Ari just for my benefit.

Who cares? It does not matter if the revelations are false. Perhaps an Indian player and a Sri Lankan did not fight over a woman during our first test victory. Maybe a junior player did not, in fact, refuse to cheat against Pakistan. Perhaps the ill-fated 1992 test was, contrary to popular belief, lost fairly and squarely. None of this matters.

What matters is that after one month of no alcohol, I am writing again.

‘Fancy being done by a bloody Chinaman,’ said 1930s’ English batsman Walter Robins in a jibe that today would have required a disciplinary hearing. It was Mathew’s bread-and-butter delivery. Pitching outside the batsman’s bat and cutting into him. Ellis Achong, a West Indian of Chinese descent, dismissed Robins with one such delivery, and sparked both the outburst and the term.

A ball turning in from a left-arm bowler is not considered as dangerous as one that turns away. The logic being that it is not difficult to combat something that moves towards you. Mathew bowled two variations of the chinaman. One with cocked wrist and one with rolling fingers. He would drift it to wide outside the off stump, giving it the appearance of a wayward delivery, and then rip it in at awkward angles.

The chinaman accounted for most of Mathew’s early wickets and remained his stock delivery throughout his career. It can be difficult to combat something that moves towards you, if it arrives unexpectedly.

Charith Silva’s call is predictably followed by him sending a Pajero with a driver. I arrive at Charith’s Rajagiriya mansion alone and with a notepad. He leads me into the garden of his plush residence and sits me down on a cane chair.

‘Have been made captain for the A-team tour to South Africa.’

‘Congratulations …’ I say, sipping a milky tea. Compared to Jonny’s Seasonal Uva Broken Orange Pekoe this tastes like bathwater.

‘What congrats?’ He waves his hands. ‘That means reserve captain. A-team captain means you never play for Sri Lanka. Look. Denham Fernando, Sajith Madena. Where are they now?’

Who? I put the tea down and brace myself.

‘Uncle. I read your
Sportstar
articles. Your writing is not boru show. Easy to read. Can you write nice article saying I am taking wickets and bowling fast?’

‘Are you taking wickets and bowling fast?’

‘Definitely. Definitely. I am faster than that Pramodya. For sure.’

‘But he is a spinner.’

‘Uncle. I will pay two lakhs. If you can put in five newspapers.’

I then deliver a well-rehearsed speech. I would do it for free and I would have it published in the
Leader.
They have a novice sports editor, too young to be harbouring prejudices against the innocent W.G. Charith would pay the bribe. I would try
Sportstar,
the
Observer
and the
Island,
but no promises. In return Charith would tell me everything he knew about Pradeep Mathew.

Hands are shaken.

What follows was not revealed in one sitting. Neither was it revealed by one person. What follows is a stitching together of hearsay. I held the needle, so apologies if the seams show.

I have quoted only those who agreed to speak to me. I was refused interviews by many, including the Captain, the GLOB, Hashan Mahanama and even spinner Kalpage. Kalpage himself was later not selected for the World Cup, for refusing to carry the Captain’s kit bag.

Charith Silva shared a room with Pradeep on the 1989 Australia tour. It was unusual for two juniors to be sharing a room. Juniors were either billeted with Sri Lankan families or packed in three to a room. The seniors got their own cabins. The tour stretched from Tasmania to Perth to Brisbane over ninety-three long days.

It was Pradeep’s third test series. He had played tests against India and Pakistan and one against New Zealand, though the latter wasn’t supposed to count. In addition to being a regular for Bloomfield, he had also featured in the ’88 Asia Cup and the ’85 World Series.

The spine was yet to enter Sri Lankan cricket. Our batting revolved around young men who would one day deliver a World Cup, but had yet to master the pressure of international sport. The pace bowling of Ravi de Mel, Labrooy and the Ratnayakes was pedestrian. The spinners Asoka de Silva, Madurasinghe, Kalpage and Mathew were used sparingly. Sri Lanka were crushed in most games, sometimes by amateur sides. Of the twenty-six games lost, Pradeep featured in three, Charith in two.

Charith knows about Pradeep’s poems. He smiles when I hand him the letter from Shirali to Harini, recently valued at three thousand rupees.

‘Fellow was going for English classes. He told me he had a manager. And a private coach. He studied all the books, but his English wasn’t gooder than mine.’

Charith knows nothing of Pradeep’s fortuitous practice with the national side in Hampshire. He remembers Pradeep bursting on the scene with a 5-wicket haul against the Colombo Cricket Club, CCC, in 1985. ‘He was the best spinner I faced. Better than Murali, for sure.’ The call-up to the national side a year later was as swift as the fallout the year after that. ‘Unless you were good with seniors, was very hard to stay in Sri Lanka team.’