Opinion In the lions den
Sri Lanka hopes a victory in Sundays T-20 World Cup final in Colombo will pierce a wider gloom
Shehan Karunatilaka,the author of Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew,the well-researched novel on Lankan cricket,puts it best. Ive been told that there is no use or value in sports. I only agree with the first part. Left-arm spinners cannot unclog your drains,teach your children or cure you of disease, the central character in the book,WG,says. But once in a while,the very best of them will bowl a ball that will bring an entire nation to its feet. And while there may be no practical use in that,there is most certainly value. In Sri Lanka,there certainly is.
In the first month of 1996,a lorry obese with explosives rammed into the Central Bank building in Colombo,the very solar plexus of its finance sector,and mushroomed into smoke. Two Tamil suicide bombers and 90 civilians died instantly,while a figure well over 1,000 lost a body part or two.
This was the first of many LTTE attacks in the new year,a calendar infested with atrocities such as the Battle of Mullaitivu (KIA,1200-plus) and the Dehiwala train bombings (dead,70),well into its pages. But the Central Bank attack was the last before the people of Sri Lanka sufferers of the rabid civil war found the unlikeliest weapon to counter human monstrosities and unite under one umbrella. Cricket. Through an era-defining World Cup.
Two months after the militants caused mass panic in the heart of the nations capital,Arjuna Ranatunga held aloft the Wills World Cup in Lahore for the north and east of the Tamils and the south and west of the Sinhalese. In only cricket they were covered in one banner,one flag. The simplistic routes to one nation had just been marked. In the words of Kumar Sangakkara,the moment was nothing short of an awakening.
Wearing a crisp suit and a crisper tongue at the MCC Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey Lecture at Lords last year,Sangakkara said: The cycle of violence seemed unending. It was a bleak time where we as a nation looked for inspiration a miracle that would lift the pallid gloom. That inspiration was to come in 1996. March 17,to be precise.
Messiah Arjuna,as Sangakkara likes to call him,and his band of multi-ethnic brothers (Sanath,Kalu,Aravinda and Murali,to name a few) managed to do what no amount of peace talks could give the common Lankan man,one who was always segregated in society,a national and united identity.
This marriage has remained a successful one ever since,through thick and thin. Cricket has been the binding factor even when the tsunami ravaged through its shores in 2004 or when Velupillai Prabhakaran the moustachiod face of the terrorist organisation was defaced in 2009. The war now is over,it has been so for the last three years,but the ghost of great uncertainty is yet to leave its soil.
Cricket played a crucial role during the dark days, Sangakkara said at the very end of his rousing oration. But as we enter a crucial period of reconciliation and recovery,it will play an even greater role in our aspiration for eternal peace and unity. And this is where the current crop,doe-eyed youngsters and children of the war,step in.
When Mahela Jayawardene,Sangakkaras best mate and captain of Sri Lankas cricket team,leads his men out to the R. Premadasa Stadium field on Sunday for the final of the World T20 Championships,a lot more will be at stake than just an alloyed trophy. They will,in fact,be playing to syringe a much weakened country with the drug of self-belief. And this time round,they will be doing it in the lap of their motherland with more than just the cricket fans pupils dilating on them.
Its not going to be easy,considering that many from this very team have fallen at this obstacle,the last one,on plenty of occasions. Since 2007,there have been six World Cups held across two formats,50 and 20-over cricket. Three of those finals they lost away from home,the fourth will be played out in front of a hysteric fan following,brass bands and arrack-driven supporters on Sunday. This mania,however,might just be the catalyst.
Never in Sri Lankas history post-war or pre-war have they been the only host of a global event. Their world has changed plenty in 12 years,what with Australia and the West Indies refusing to step on their strife-ridden land when Lanka co-hosted the event in 1996. Incidentally,it will be precisely those two teams who will take on each other in the second semi-final to meet Lanka in the lions den. Colombo,a place they didnt think fit for their safety,just a dozen years ago.
Jayawardene,however,will have other sources of deep inspiration too. With buddy Sanga next to him,he survived a full-blown terrorist attack on the team bus in Lahore a few years ago a moment that converted a bunch of easygoing individuals into blood brothers for life. Now,bearing the unfading blemishes of shrapnel wounds on their bodies,they will look to heal the scar of a brutally violated island.
aditya.iyer@expressindia.com
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