Why lynch Senanayake and Mathews for playing to the rules

Whatever is said and done and however much hairs are split, a rule is a rule laid down in the books and Senanayake played according to the rules. He ran out the batsman after issuing him warnings. In an era that was golden, the game was played in the spirit and according to the rules. But to talk of the spirit now is to be laughed at.

One remembers how former Australian Captain Greg Chappell got his brother Trevor to bowl an underarm delivery at New Zealand batsman Evan Chatfield in a one-day game which nearly led to a war between the countries. Then again when I was in New Zealand covering the Sri Lanka tour, I remember the incident when Kumar Sangakkara got to his century with last man Muttiah Muralitharan in.

Only congratulating his partner

After completing the run that gave Sangakkara his century Muralitharan walked down to congratulate his partner. A Kiwi whose name does not come to mind threw the ball to the bowler who broke the stumps.

The Kiwis appealed and Muralitharan was ruled run out. Both Sangakkara and Muralitharan were amazed. Muralitharan was only going down to congratulate his partner.

But the umpire ruled Muralitharan out because he had left the crease without informing the umpire. It was in the rules and was quite rightly ruled out. In both instances - underarm ball and Muralitharan incident - the spirit did not come into play, it was the rules that mattered. So why stab Senanayake and Mathews.

The rule makers were quick to get the rule out of the book in the underarm ball incident. So the rule makers will do well to rethink the running out of the non-striker who backs up too far and not lynch those who play according to the rules.

Once the mega dollars started flooding in, winning is not the thing, it is the only thing. So those who pontificate on playing to the rules and keeping the spirit need to rethink.

Match fixing in World Cup in Brazil

With a few days more to go for what the game of football is about - the 2014 WORLD CUP in Brazil, come the news that match fixing or player fixing will be at it zenith in Brazil.

Match-fixing is nothing new to sport. It happens in every sport and while the sprats get caught, the sharks escape the net. Many sports people have fallen prey to this curse and are now suffering in gambling’s hell.

The match-fixers lure the sportsman or the woman luring them promising big money, money that they would not have earned for the rest of their careers. And they succumb.

With just a few more days for the kick-off of the World Cup in Brazil, the land of samba, singing and dancing, comes the news that 50,000 Euros are on offer for a player earning a yellow card and 100,000 Euros for a player conceding a penalty and cash prices to fix tournaments.

It is alleged that players of a particular country playing in the

World Cup have agreed to fix games. A player earning a Red Card has demanded for more because it affects the player more. O Tempora!

O Mores! or O’ the Times and O the Morals!!

Brazil is all set to host one of the best organized and conducted show pieces of football the WORLD CUP 2014’ in their country although there are demonstrations and unrest demanding that the money spent on hosting the World Cup could have been put to better use.

But for the Samba dancing and fun loving Brazilians who have produced dazzling football and produced the greatest player that the game has seen and will ever see PELE - the Black Pearl - the game’s the thing.

Pall of gloom descends on Brazil

With Brazil all dressed up for the big occasion, a pall of gloom would have descended with the news that the Edson Cholbi de Nascimento, a son of the legend Pele, has been sentenced to jail for 33-years after being found guilty for money laundering. Edson who played under the name of Edinho was a goal keeper unlike his father who hit the inside of the net over a thousand times in a glittering career.

Edinho who was jailed twice before was convicted of handling hundreds of thousands of pounds raised from drug trafficking. Edinhon 43 was jailed twice before but was released each time after a few months following an appeal. The SUN newspaper here reported that Edinhon was first arrested in 2005 during a police crackdown on Red Command, one of Brazil’s largest criminal organisation.

He was allegedly recorded telling a gang leader he could make use of his dad’s name to smooth laundering scams. Pele 73 had protested his son’s innocence in the past.

Lankan Fernando Brazilian trained

Talking of football in Brazil and the legends they produced brings to mind Sri Lanka’s only Brazilian trained coach the one and only and man for all seasons Albert Fernando from my old school St. Benedict’s College, Kotahena. Fernando was top notch centre forward as that position was then called in the 1940s and he Captained the School and after a short stint as the school’s coach, saw luck coming his way, when a former Sri Lankan Ambassador who was an old Ben, whose name does not come to mind, got him to Brazil to follow a trainer’s course.

Fernando had the good fortune of training with players of the calibre of Pele, Zico, Garrincha, Socrates and several others who made Brazil champions in World Cups and several other tournaments in the world.

Back after being the first Sri Lanka to obtain a Brazilian Trainer’s license, he came back to his old school and to coaching and produced eye catching footballers and champion teams.

Fine art of dribbling

He introduced the fine art of dribbling, which was the hallmark of Brazilian football and churned out forwards of the calibre of Sampoornan and Nithi Nicholas, Denzil Walles, Rex Sebastian, Suriyakumar Seneviratne, T. Wanigaratnam, Tissa Kodituwakku, Rozen Rodrigo, Edward Jayewardene and Errol Anthony and he made Tilak Pieris a special defender who went on to lead the Ceylon Schools football team. The above mentioned were treats to watch when they had the ball at their feet they wove magic and had opponents bamboozled with their artistry - courtesy Brazilian style.

Fernando as my teacher at SBC and in latter life over a few beers he would regale to me and my friend Patrick Perera about Brazilian

football, the great Pele and others and we listened in awe. Fernando later went on to become the national coach and also obtain a West German trainer’s license before making India his home where he coached many an Indian club before ending up as football correspondent of the popular HINDU newspaper. Fernando is no more in the land of the living. But what he did for the school in football should be writ in gold, along with Bro. Mathias, Brian Assey and Ram Suntheralingam who did wonders for hockey and basketball in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Pity that St. Benedict’s College and the Old Bens Sports Club have not thought it fit to honour these great coaches. The present President of OBSC Malsiri Perera who was a pupil of Suntheralingam and who captained Sri Lanka in basketball like his brother Cosmas and is doing wonders for the club, should consider honouring these sporting greats.

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