Abu Fuard dedicated his life to Sri Lanka Cricket

‘SPORTSCOPE’ records with profound sadness the passing away of former All Ceylon cricketer—- the ‘stormy petrel’ of the game— Abu Fuard after a prolonged illness last week. What an illustrious Innings he had and the marvellous contribution he made to the development of the game!

It was he who led the crusade to get the country into a full Test playing nation and fighting all odds to open the doors to outstation cricketers. We take our presence in World Cricket for granted. But Abu Fuard, who was a close friend of this columnist, did more than his share to get Sri Lanka on the World Map of cricket.

It was Fuard along with the then President of the Board of Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka Gamini Dissanayake, R. Rajamahendran, Daham Wimalasena and Vasantha Coomaraswamy who were instrumental in getting Sri Lanka into the exclusive Test playing portals in 1981.

Test status

Fuard from the time he sported the Ceylon cap had promised that he would not rest until Sri Lanka gained Test status. With this burning passion he got down to laying the pitch for Sri Lanka’s admittance to ICC status as he prematurely retired from the game.

Every time Sri Lanka made an attempt to enter the elite league, the ICC turned down the request asking us to go back and grow’ grow up’ to put it more bluntly! The ICC even sent journalists who came here and went around sniffing, making adverse reports to the ICC, including that there were no toilets at playing venues! This infuriated Fuard. As a first step to breaking through the defence of the lord’s at Lords, Fuard convinced Dissanayake who was a powerful Minister to accept the post of President of the BCCSL.

All rounder

As an off-spinning all rounder that was the first vicious off spinner that he bowled at the ICC. Dissanayake immediately donned pads and took on the ICC head on.

Helped by the three iIlustrious gentlemen mentioned above, Fuard along with Dissanayake broke through the defence of the ICC and bowled them. The ICC, unable to face the bowling, surrendered and admitted Sri Lanka as a full Test plying member. And that was the greatest day in the life of Abu Fuard. Now that Sri Lanka had achieved Test status it was important that we get our infrastructure right. As a first step Dissanayake put Fuard in charge of getting the Trinity College ground at Asgiriya to Test playing standard.

Test playing venue

Fuard took to the job like a duck to water and even burnt midnight oil spending all his time, at times spending his own money, and seeing to it that Asgiriya would soon be a Test playing venue. He enlisted the help of Huthifa Halimdeen the veteran Trinity old boy, had the support of Dr. C.D.L. Fernando, Anver Marikar and his nephew Hafiz, S.Uduwella, Z.M. Jaufer, Deva Amunugama, Harinda Dunuwille and Alex Lazarus. Having to inhale the dust when the ground was dug up, saw Fuard

suddenly falling ill with one of his kidneys failing and his brother Ansar had to donate a kidney. Professor Rizvi Sheriff performed the surgery successfully and

Fuard was back on his feet again. But not long afterwards he lost his eye-sight. This was sad. But his love for the game and its progress did not diminish. He

would get his dear wife Fowzia to switch on the TV and would keenly follow the destinies of the game through the commentaries.

Power behind the throne

Fuard was known as the power behind the throne. It was during his time at the wicket that Sri Lanka won the First ever Test beating Kapil Dev’s Indians at the Colombo Oval. That was followed with second Test victory against Imran Khan’s Pakistan team at the CCC ground. nFuard’s next great achievement was the breaking of the stranglehold held by the elite schools when it came to playing for the country. In those days a cricketer had to come from the two elite schools to play for Ceylon. Once his playing days were over, Fuard stepped into administering the game. He was aware of the untapped talent existing in the outskirts and began opening the door for the cricketers to hob nob with cricketers from elite schools.

His efforts have now borne fruit in that there is hardly any cricketer in the national team from elite schools! Dominating the game today are the cricketers from little known schools in the country.

Establishment

Fuard was never afraid to take on the establishment when he realised that they were not playing straight. He would always call a spade a spade—always forthright to a point that he was misunderstood. But then it did not take time for his detractors to realise the intergity and the honesty of the man.

Fuard was a controversial character. He had the highest regard for the then Secretary of the Ministry of Sport Lionel Madugalle. The Minister of Sport was K.B.Ratnayake. He used to tell me that it was a pleasure working with Madugalle.

During Madugalle’s reign there were two controversial characters. One was Fuard and the other J.S.N. Anandaraja of football fame. Madugalle once told me that many were the complaints he received on Fuard and Anandaraja. But he was convinced that they were disliked because of their honesty and penchant for hard work.

I had the privilege of playing with and against Fuard and could vouch for the fact that he played the game hard and to the rules, because for him the game was the thing. He was a clever off spinner with a variety of many other

deliveries. Tall and well built, he bowled with clean action, unlike bowlers of today who have actions that could be queried. Batsmen struggled to play his viciously spinning deliveries. He had a stinging top spinner and a delivery that he would bowl with an off break action which went the other way —-which delivery is now called the ‘doosra’.Fuard was the inventor of that delivery.

As a batsman, he had the temperament, technique and strokes to bat in any position. He made many big knocks in his career playing for Moors, Colts and CCC. As a fielder he excelled in the slips. He played in the unofficial Test which Sri Lanka won against India in India under the leadership of Michael Tissera.

Playing for Sri Lanka against Richie Benaud’s Australians bound team for England for the Ashes at the P.Sara, Fuard captured five wickets which prompted Benaud who was highly impressed with his top class off spin to say that he would have loved to have Fuard in his England bound team. Such was the esteem that Fuard was held in.

Rudiments

Fuard learnt the rudiments of the game at Wesley College, which College also produced the greatest batsman in Mahadevan Sathasivam. He was coached by the famous Alban Fernando. Fernando later became the chief cricket writer at ‘The Times of Ceylon’.

A memorial

A memorial in his honour at the headquarters of Sri Lanka

Cricket he helped build will be an everlasting memory to this great cricketer and administrator who ate, drank and slept cricket until it took centre stage.

The game and the status that it is now enjoying is

due to the pioneering work, sweat and toil of that man of many parts and that man for all seasons ABU FUARD.

A distinguished gathering flocked the Kupiyawatte Burial ground

to see him laid to rest. Goodbye my dear friend and may the turf that you loved, performed on and on which you walked with great distinction and honour rest softly on you.

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