Change from amateur to professional, good for cricket - Polonowita

By Ranjan ANANDAPPA

CRICKET: Half a century of dedicated service in sports or in any capacity is something to celebrate. Former Sri Lanka cricketer Anuruddha Polonowita let 50 years of service to cricket pass last year without much fuss.

Popularly known as `Polons’ in the local cricketing fraternity, the man is now batting on 70 years. As we all know his name is knitted to the game of cricket like how fast food takes to the frying pan.

In fact `Polons’ who has ascended the ladder in many forms - from player to administrator, coach, umpires head, Selection Committee head, is today holding one of the most important post sacred to the game of cricket as the national curator.

A past pupil of Ananda College, Colombo, Polonowita’s name has been synonymous to Ananda and Sri Lanka cricket having not only excelled as a left-arm leg spinner, a specialised close in fielder, a more than useful late order batsman and an automatic choice to the national team in his hey-days. He also moulded many youngsters into national stars.

A list that ranges from Arjuna Ranatunga to the Wettimuny brothers - Sunil, Mithra, Sidath, then Marvan Atapattu, Ajith de Silva, Sanjeeva, Dammika and Prasanna Ranatunga, Charith Senanayake, Thilan and Dulip Samaraweera, Avishka Gunawardena, Brendon Kuruppu, Chandika Hathurusinghe, Hemantha Wickrermaratne, Prasanna Amarasinghe and of the present lot - Thilina Kandamby, Akalanka Ganegama as the coach of Ananda for 38 continuous years.

`Polons’ young days dates back to the 1950’s when he represented a victorious Sri Lanka Under 19 team in a triangular cricket tourney involving India and Australia in 1958.

To say that Polonowita is one among the elite names that contributed their bit in promotion of cricket and the results are known today where the coaching has been made good and the fact lies the youngsters have benefitted a great deal.

He represented Sri Lanka then Ceylon under three very astute captains, namely the late Vernon Prins, C. Ivers Gunasekera and Michael Tissera from 1960 to ‘70 as an all-rounder and he has had a hand in some of Sri Lanka’s triumphs against India and Pakistan in `unofficial Tests’ in an era where the country was pressing hard to gain full ICC status.

At a time when cricket is played more for the commercial purposes than for the love of the game, `Polons’ refreshingly touched a cord on how sacred the game was to cricketers during his time when he donned the national cap.

“Looking back around five decades ago, the game has changed dramatically”, said Polonowita.

“From the beginning we played cricket for the love of the game and for the sake of cricket rather than monetary gains. Our main aim was to represent the country. We had to spend our own money, as it was prestigious representing the country other than monetary gains.”

Polonowita said that the game has changed. Now the game has become really professional, as we have fulltime players unlike the past. This move is good because they earn a lot of money and are rewarded for their achievements unlike in the past”, he said.

Polonowita was in favour of the new innovation in modern day cricket, the referrential system saying that the concept could go either way. At times a cricketer’s future could end in jeopardy if he gets some bad decisions. By implementing this modern technology their future could be saved as the truth could be revealed. So why not go for it!, Polonowita asked.