Rain might have spoiled many a plan, but the 6,207 people at the Manuka Oval looked a pretty full house nevertheless. And it was here that a whole new army made its presence felt at the international cricket arena. The Bharat Army beware: the Appu Army is here! For long, Percy Abhishekera was the lone flag-bearer. But a whole bunch of supporters now accompany him to the venues where the Sri Lankan team plays cricket. An entire 100-odd bunch of drum-beating and dancing members descended here all the way from Sydney to cheer their team. Even before the match had began, Canberra was turned into a mini Kandy with Sri Lankan flags, Malinga wigs and a separate section of ‘Voice of Tamils,’ that popped a question —’Where’s humanity?’—through their red-shirts in a seething remark to their political turmoil back home. The concept of Lal Samuels, a web-designer, the month-old Appu Army registers members through its website appuarmy.com and admits that he was inspired by the Barmy, Bharat and Swamy Army to think on similar concepts. Membership is open to all, including non-Lankan nationals and people who have knowledge about their cricket team. “The name came from Appuharmy; it’s an ancient and famous name in Sri Lanka and almost everybody at home knows where it came from. I took out the ‘H’ from it and thought it would be a nice idea to go and support out cricketers. After all, they also deserve full-time supporters because the Sri Lankan team is one of the top teams in the world now,” says Samuels.One of the foremost initiatives of this Sydney-based support concept is to merge all Lankan supporters in providing moral support to the team that has faced booing from the partisan Australian crowd. The Appu Army made its debut at Sydney in the last match where the team lost badly to Australia but the strength of the supporters has been increasing since then. There’s a substantial number of peopleofSri Lankan descent residing Down Under and efforts are afoot to rope in sponsors to fund their travel with the team. Sri Lankan skipper Mahela Jayawardene also expressed his happiness over the turnout at the ground. “It was a great atmosphere here and the crowds were were just brilliant. It was nice to see the team getting a dedicated support throughout the match,” he says. So what if Richie Benaud or Channel Nine didn’t come down and attract their attention? Two wig-wearing lookalikes of Benaud did the job for a long interview! Their fancy dresses and colourful antics had turned the atmosphere into a carnival. And as luck would have it, the cricket too turned into a similar spectacle with the Lankans going full blast at the Indians. And this resounding eight-wicket win was celebrated in typical fashion—the entire lot took the Manuka Circle to ransom and held the traffic for a while they as it the dance routines. Now this is some competition in a true sense to all maverick Indian cricket team fans.
