‘Satha’ - the bowler, brings victory to Wesley

by Edmund Dissanayake

CRICKET: Changing the action plan in cricket is not easy. But, there have been some instances where bowlers have changed their course of action and turned batsmen and yet hit the top. One such bowler is former Wesley College cricketer Mahadeva Sathasivam, who was a known bowler in his school days, but changed ‘wings’ as if to say, and became a full-fledged batsman in later years.

Wesleyite Sathasivam’s change-over from being a bowler during his school days to a star-class batsman in later years in life buzzles most people.

Take for instance 1935 and Wesley were in the forefront of inter-school cricket and up came their match against Trinity College and the venue was the former Tamil Union Ground at Campbell Park March 22 and 23 that year.

Trinity had quite a forceful batting line-up and in those early days they did quite well to get to 185 runs in their first turn. It was a good score by any standard. Piling on the runs for Trinity were O. L. Izadeen 37, M. Ratwatte 24, H. Bandaranayake 22, D. D. Reith 20, S. David 18 and S. G. Perera was 34 not out.

The other players for Trinity were: S. Jansz, John Halangoda, Rex Breckenridge, W. Winter and R. Ratwatte.

Sathasivam opened bowling for Wesley and he really gave all the shocks to the Trinitians with his penetrative bowling and he was successful in capturing 4 for 47 and he was supported by Bertram Chlmus (2 for 43) and Ivan Wallbeoff (2 for 35).

Came Wesley’s turn to bat and Henry Van Buren - the captain also batted well to make 39 and they carried the batting while there were useful contributions from Ohlmus 22, Sathasivam 19 and T. F. Adjie 15.

The other members of the team were: Panchala Goonetilleke, Henry Duckworth, Eric Ferdinands, Claude Ganegoda and Reggie Joseph.

Trinity’s bowlers had done well to restrict Wesley batsmen from piling on the runs and they kept a tidy length. S. David (6 for 67) and S. G. Perera 2 for 46 and Rex Breckenridge 2 for 20 kept a tidy length to restrict the scoring by the Wesleyites.

Shocks for Trinity

Came the second innings and Trinity’s batsmen ran into difficulties and they were more or less routed out for 66 runs in their second innings. Izadeen who top scored for Trinity in the first innings, was at it again in the second innings and made 34 - the top score.

Sathasivam who troubled the Trinitians with a haul of 4 for 47 in the first innings was at it again and his nagging length caused the downfall of the Trinitians again and they folded up for 66.

Sathasivam captured 5 for 30 to give him eye-catching match figures of 9 for 77, Ohlmus took 2 for 9 and he had match figures of 4 for 52 and Wallbeoff took 3 for 21 and he had match figures of 5 for 56.

So, the bowling of Mahadeva Sathasivam turned up trumps again for Wesley in the second innings and he certainly would have been the toast of all the Wesleyites, both past and present for his performance in this game.

In their second innings, Wesley had to make 79 runs for victory and they marched to the victory post, losing just one wicket.

Past Captains vs Rest

The final cricket match that Mahadevan Sathasivam played was the centenary cricket match between Past Captains vs Rest in 1974.

PAST CAPTAINS: Harold Nonis (Captain) 1921, Vernon Vanden Drieson (1924), Stanley Jayasekera (1939), T. I. Cassim (1944, 1945), Edmund Dissanayake (1946, 1947), Ansar Fuard (1954), Nalendra Abeysuriya (1958), Dharmaratne Kodituwakku (1961), Lalith Wijesinghe (1962), Milroy Muthuvalee (1963), A. K. Thevathasen (1966), Sunil Fernando (1968), A. H. A. Cader (1972).

REST: Mahadeva Sathasivam (Capt), Eric Jayasekera, Paul Senaratne, D. S. Wijemanne, A. Ramachandra, S. C. Chinivasagam, Abu Fuard, S. Musafer, Mervyn Hamer, Clifford Rodrigo, Deryk Schokman, Wilhelm Van Dort, Hariharan Jeganathan, B. N. Jurangpathy.

PAST CAPTAINS: 101 for 8 wkts dec (D. Kodituwakku 47, L. Wijesinghe 31 retd., D. Schokman 2 for 8, A. Ramachandra 2 for 13).

REST: 80 for 2 wkts (Mahadeva Sathasivam 46 not out). A. Ramachandra who played for the Rest was taken ill during the match and he died in hospital. The match was abandoned and the celebrations were cancelled.