Lasantha Rodrigo excelled in six sports

By Leslie FERNANDO

CRICKET: Cambrian captain Lasantha Rodrigo who excelled in six sports - cricket, table tennis, tennis, athletics, soccer and volleyball at inter-school level, turned out to be one of Sri Lanka's best batsmen from late 1950's to 1970's. Lasantha played for Prince of Wales, Singhalese Sports Club, Colombo Municipality, Nomads SC, CCC and Ceylon Cold Stores.

It was his beloved father late J.B.C. Rodrigo who was the principal for more than 25 years at Prince of Wales College who encouraged Lasantha to concentrate on cricket `J.B.C.' played cricket when he was at Oxford University and later for Keble College. Late J.B.C. Rodrigo was an outstanding sportsman and an educationist par-excellence. His counterpart while playing for Keble College was Nawab of Pataudi (senior).

Lasantha Rodrigo, who will be 71 on May 28, was a stylish batsman. Right handed batsman lasantha's sizzling cover drives cannot be forgotten. He was so sharp in judging the ball and with superb accuracy, he used to place the ball to collect his runs. Lanky lasantha was also a agile cover fielder.

He played for Prince of wales with distinction. As a 15-year-old, he played in the `Big Match' against St. Sebastian's College. Lasantha scored 94 runs in the first innings and in another match he made his fastest innings of 105 runs in 65 minutes against Nalanda. In the 1956 cricket season, Lasantha hit four centuries against S. Thomas', Nalanda, Richmond and Holy Cross, Kalutara.

After leaving school, he played for SSC, Lasantha was the deputy to C.I. Gunasekera. In the 1958 season, he scored three hundreds and two 50s, for the club and headed the batting average in the P. Sara Trophy Tournament at an average of 69.67 runs.

First at CMC

Lasantha's first job was when he joined the Colombo Municipality as a part-time Playground Instructor. He played several match winning knocks in Government Services `A' Division Tournaments.

He played alongside Clive Deutrom, Douglas Silva, A. Polonowita, D. Baultjens, M. Devaraja, Sarath Silva, Makin Salith, Dr. J.G.C. Peiris, Lionel Fernando, D.P. De Silva for the CMS.

He was at the CMC only for a short period. In 1963, he joined Ceylon Cold Stores as an Engineer Trainee. Lasantha was deprived of playing club cricket for four years as he had to follow a Mechanical Engineering Course at Katubedda Campus, studying full day on Saturdays. This deprived him a chance of captaining Sri Lanka since he was the deputy to C.H. Gunasekera. At the SSC, he played under C.H. Gunasekera also. In the 1960 season, when C.R. Gunasekera got injured half way during the season, Lasantha had the privilege of captaining the team for rest of the season and SSC qualified to play in the final of Sara Trophy against NCC led by K.M.T. Perera. The SSC won. This feat enabled Lasantha to be deputy to C.I. Gunasekera when the Ceylon team was selected to tour Tamil Nadu for the Gopalan Trophy matches.

Lasantha first represented Sri lanka in 1961 against Australia captained by Richie Benurd in a one day game. He made 44 which incidentally was the highest score. In 1962, he played for President's XI against England and scored 42 runs. England team was captained by Ted Dexter. He also played for CCA against Pakistan Eaglets captained by M. Sujauddin.

Two tours to India

He also made two tours to India, first in 1964 to paly three `unofficial Tests' against India He also played in all three matches captained by Michael Tissera. Some of the others who toured along with Lasantha were Neil Chanmugam, H.I.K. Fernando, Darrel Liversy, Ranjith Fernando, Mano Ponniah, Lareef Idroos, Stanley Jayasinghe who came from England. He also played in the Gopalan Trophy match in Madras. In the `Gopalan' match played in Colombo in 1961, Lasantha top scored with a fine 89 runs and he was associated in a valuable partnership of 140 runs for the fourth wicket with C.I. Gunasekera. Madras was led by C.D. Gopinath and Kripal Singh was vice captain.

Lasantha was a public schools sprinter. At soccer, he was a speedy `right outer' and also was a clever goal keeper. He was also a fine volleyball player with his height being to his advantage to spoke over the net. He captured the table tennis team with his top spin attack on both flanks of the table. At tennis, he was a key player for Carlton Club, Moratuwa - an aggressive player always breaking an opponents serve.

Lasantha had the great opportunity of being coached by famous cricketers H.I. Fernando at Prince of Wales and Bertie Wijesinghe a Sinhalese Sports Club.

On completion of his playing days, Lasantha Rodrigo served on the Cricket Board as a National Selector in 1981 and 1982 with Abu Fuard as the Chairman.