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Cricket traditions with England
By Lenard R. Mahaarachchi
Cricket crazy local fans starved for a while sans their popular stars in the field were waiting anxiously to see some loverly cricket by the touring England team and ours before the year-end. But alas, there was some disappointment in store.

With the arrival of Michael Vaughn and his men in November early speculation that the series would be a non-event due to the prevailing political chaos here terminated happily for cricket fans. But the weather gods interfered thereafter and rain washed out all expectations when only a solitary ODI was played at Dambulla, thus thwarting the expected thrills for the fans in the metro, when the second and third limited matches were buried in a watery grave.

Now that all systems are 'go' for the Test series, it is not inopportune to go back to trace our affiliations with English cricket in the last few decades. This game commenced in England and with the Britishers invading us, it spread locally and caught up fast. So our affinities with the Englishmen go back to February 1982, after the ICC decided to vest Sri Lanka with Test status 12 moons earlier, when they accepted us as a member. So on February 17 that year at the Oval - the most respected cricket venue at the time - our cricketers donned the flannels and arrayed themselves against the English team for the first time in the history of the game between the two countries.

Bandula Warnapura has the distinction of being the very first skipper of the local team. Keith Fletcher led England and as expected they beat us by 7 wickets with a day to spare.

Today after 21 years, we have come of age, and are bracing to face their might at Test level if the weather gods will spare a kind thought for the cricket mad local fans. Down the line we have met them on as many as a dozen occasions. But we had not had a Five-Test series with them for nearly two decades while the on coming series is only three Tests. We have faced the might of England half a dozen times on a solitary Test basis. Browsing through the past they hold the edge winning as many as seven out of 12. We have registered only three wins. England won four times at home while the locals won just once. Of the five played here, we managed to pull victory twice.

One thing that stands out is that none of them ended in a 'no decision'. Nassar Hussein pulled off two wins as skipper in one match played in 2001 and once abroad the following year. Of the local skippers, Arjuna Ranatunga has the distinction of equalling Nassar's achievement in equal fashion i.e. one here and one away and that was way back in 1993 and 98 respectively. But the locals can boast of hoisting the highest score when they amassed 591 at the Oval Test in 98. The Englishmen's record is 545, scored in Birmingham in the last outing. Both teams have scored over 400 as many as five times. On the negative side it was the Lankans who managed only a paltry 81 in the 2nd innings in the last Test at the SSC.

England's lowest is 188 scored at the Oval in 1998 also in the 2nd essay. Here the destroyer was our star bowler Murali. The series has produced 26 centurions, 15 of them being the English. Master blaster Sanath has the most number of runs against them with a record of a twin century (213) scored at the Oval. Marvan the present One-Day skipper comes behind Jayasuriya with 201 while Sidath Wettimuny is third with a 190 collected in the match of 1984. Graham Gooch is the best opponent, scoring 174 at Lords. Alec Stuart has got the highest number of tons against us, followed by Graham Thorpe, Marcus Trescothick and Mark Butcher who got two centuries each vs. Sri Lanka. Marvan, Mahela and Arvinda are the others who have earned centuries against the formidable Englishmen.

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