Colombo, Sri Lanka

Shehan Karunatilaka on a capital that straddles the beautiful and the banal.

If a visitor is planning a trip to Sri Lanka, I usually advise that they skip Colombo. Not being harsh, but on the island’s buffet table of scenic delights, the city is very much a side dish.

On first glimpse, it’s just another Asian metropolis, trying to peddle that East-meets-West thing. Not as berserk as Mumbai, not as sober as Singapore. Most travelers will drive straight through, en route to the beaches down south, the hilltops out east, or the fallen kingdoms up north.

If you’re in Sri Lanka to upload pics, there may be some boxes for you to tick. The sun setting over the kites on Galle Face Green. The city ablaze with light and color during Vesak. Elephants by Beira Lake in full-moon fancy dress.

But cities aren’t just for tourists. Dismount from your air-conditioned car into the heat and the dust, and you’ll find that there’s plenty below the surface if you’re only willing to scratch.

The Greeks, Romans, and Persians used Colombo’s harbor as a trading port. The Portuguese built their fort here and commanded the coast. The Dutch seized the city in the bloody siege of 1656, before ceding it to the British a century and a half later. Every colonizer left his paw prints. You see it in the clock towers, the schools, and the grand hotels. In the railway line that snakes between Galle Road and the coast and in the cricket games that fill every street. Colombo’s the only city in the world with four test-match venues, a place where the game is practiced as a religion and celebrated as a carnival. Cricket binds this city, as it does a nation not short of divisions.

Foreign empires have colonized Colombo, from the Greeks and Persians onward. Now, the city is seeking to reinvent itself, Alfredo Caliz / Panos

Colombo houses many worlds. From the malls of Bambalapitiya to the palaces of Cinnamon Gardens; from the dives of Slave Island to the balconies of Havelock Town. Pathways decorated with lush trees and colorful kovils run by rickety billboards and smelly canals. Roads crowded with buses, trishaws, and trucks make way for motorcades of Pajeros and Lamborghinis. Gaudy casinos rub shoulders with churches.

It’s a city that doesn’t know where it’s going but is determined to get there. Today Colombo seeks to reinvent itself. Where once there were checkpoints, high structures are rising. Walls will be knocked down, highways extended, and slums replaced with greenery. While the sun shines without pause and the monsoon comes and goes as it pleases, everyone pretends to forget about the slaughters of the past. The burnings of 1983, the explosions of ’87, the abductions of ’89. The electoral bloodbaths, the prolonged power failures, and the parade of assassinations that punctuated the 1990s.

Today, we prefer to remember the victories. The cups won, the guns silenced, the bigotry overcome. We ignore the ghosts of the unresolved, the unconsoled, and the unforgiven that haunt our present. We try to celebrate our many communities and remind ourselves that we have no more excuses. No more war to hold us back, no more scapegoats to blame.

Because the city no longer belongs to the rulers who deface it, the thugs who defile it, or the bureaucrats who slow it down. It belongs to street vendors who serve up glorious kottu. To the trishaws adorned with misspelled slogans. To the bloggers who share secrets and the lovers who hide under umbrellas. It belongs to the girls with their straightened hair, the workers crammed into wobbly buses, and the strays that prowl its streets. To those who appear in Colombo’s gossip mags and those who pretend not to read them.

Colombo is both big city and small town. And, like the nation it belongs to, it is on the cusp of something. Something that could be wonderful or malign. It is poised on a precipice, about to plummet or to soar.

For those who live here, who’ve seen it morph from city by the sea to garrison town to this shiny emblem of our unseen future, Colombo offers its own buffet table of delights. It may not be a city that you instantly fall in love with, but it is one that you grow to adore.

SRI LANKAN MYSTERIES

Three striking differences with India

Alaka M. Basu

I am writing this on the road from Colombo to Kandy. And again (I have been doing this repeatedly for the last four days) I thank the gods for having allowed this break from the bitter cold of Delhi into such a lush paradise of warmth and water and throat-searing food.

But it is also a bit disorienting to be in this country. It feels like home country (the landscape is especially so reminiscent of Kerala) and yet there is something that is distinctly different. One does not get this kind of disorientation in a patently different land — Japan or Sweden for example; there everything is new and different and so one is clearly an outsider. And within India, even in places far away from one’s “usual place of residence” (as the census calls it), there are reminders of the larger country one claims citizenship of — Hindi film music wafting out of narrow lanes, life-sized posters of unphotogenic politicians wishing someone or being wished by someone or the other “haardik kamnayein” for a birthday or festival, familiar brand names of soaps and spices in roadside grocery stores.

This is what I think at first is the cause of the feeling of disorientation in Colombo. Until I notice that I recognize the Hindi film melodies of the Sinhala songs playing on taxi radios and notice that Sri Lankan politicians are as unphotogenic and as poster-hungry as ours, and discover that the Tata and Airtel and Reliance (as well as Ariel and Colgate and Lux) brands are as visibly ubiquitous as in India.

So what is it that makes me feel out of place? The drive to Kandy is long and my moving pen gradually reaches a conclusion. There is something culturally amiss here. I am not seeing some important things that I expect to see when the people around look so much like me that they even come and ask me for road directions. Culture is a big word, I know, and it implies things that are long-standing and stable and difficult to change. If I believed this lay definition of culture I would be very depressed indeed, because what is missing in Sri Lankan culture should be missing from India too, and the thought of culture being an immutable thing should make one hopelessly sad in this particular case. Luckily, the more academic current definition of culture is all about it being dynamic and changeable and negotiable, so maybe reflecting on the positive culture of Sri Lanka will help us to change and negotiate our own negative one as well.

So how are Sri Lankans different from us? I know of course all the text book stuff that was rammed down our throats in classes on development in college — the remarkable literacy rates (virtually universal), the excellent health (infant mortality, maternal mortality and life expectancy levels that rival Western Europe’s), the fantastic public services for health and education that persist in the face of a neo-liberal economy. I also know that this country has seen more than two decades of brutal violence, which seems to have finally ended or at least paused (thanks to a period of even more brutal violence, some say). But these are not things that one notes visually and anecdotally enough to account for one’s feeling of disorientation.

Then what are these more obviously visible unique features of life in Sri Lanka? I think that three startling differences make up the root cause of my disorientation. Maybe they are related, but maybe they are not — they are quite distinct and don’t automatically accompany economic growth (they certainly have not accompanied our own long period of 8-9 per cent gross domestic product growth); that is why I call them cultural rather than socio-economic.

First of all (and dearest to my own heart) is the ease and joy with which women traverse public spaces. In the densest crowds, such as in the packed public buses we ride in Colombo and (as I am still to discover) in the heaving masses paying their new year’s respects in the Tooth temple in Kandy, if this had been India (and especially if this had been Delhi), there would have been few women daring enough to actually be present as well as to smile pleasantly at strangers — even male strangers, as my husband happily discovers. Instead they would be fearful of being groped and mauled if young (or even middle-aged) and pushed roughly aside if old and weak. But I am not ‘eve-teased’ and nor do I break any bones; so I wonder what age category I should slot myself in. Instead, there is a miraculous one inch of free space that surrounds me from top to bottom and back to front right in the middle of these superficially shoving crowds. I cannot stop rubbing my eyes in amazement at this.

My second reason for feeling out of place is that public spaces are unreasonably clean. Neither in Colombo nor on the road to Kandy did I see the mounds of filth-encrusted plastic bags and other forms of smelly or environment-contaminating waste that even the most expensive parts of our own cities and towns revel in. Nor were public buildings and roadsides ungrudging receptacles for fiery red spit. Sri Lankans may not eat paan, but they do use plastic bags alas, and they must be having household garbage too; where they dispose of these things remains a mystery to me.

The third striking absence was of the kind of degrading poverty one sees in such abundance in any place in India. I don’t think their poor and homeless get hidden from view as ours reportedly were in Delhi during the Commonwealth Games and, yet, even the one apparent beggar I saw on the street, and tried to give some change to, turned out to have a sheaf of lottery tickets she pressed upon me in return. This absence of broken-hearted (and frequently broken-limbed) poverty was so in your face that I forgave myself for wondering which planet I was on. The explanation probably lies in the equally implausible absence of evidence of roaring wealth of the kind that hurts one’s eyes and ears in the shopping malls of Delhi and Mumbai and Calcutta (my anthropological expedition to the mall in Colombo — Majestic City — that the local people proudly urged me to visit was such a damp squib after Ambience Mall in Delhi and South City in Calcutta) as well as in the fancy car dealerships in Kolhapur and Coimbatore. In other words, in spite of having a per capita income close to twice ours, if crazy consumerism is a bit reined in in Sri Lanka, there must be greater income equality than we have here and that might explain the relative absence of stark poverty.

PS: When I started writing this piece, I meant to include a fourth Sri Lankan virtue — the absence of petty cheating. But this had to be dropped after our experience at the Elephant Orphanage in Pinnawala. As we neared the bathing baby elephants in this spot of popular tourist attraction, a scrupulously innocent looking man in a lungi persuaded us to give him Rs 100 for a bag of bananas to feed the elephants. Excited about this feeding adventure we rushed to the water only to be stopped by a guard who pointed us to a sign saying that feeding the animals was prohibited and that we had to leave the bananas on the ground. Needless to say, given our Indian expectations, when we turned around within seconds before admiring the elephants, there was no sign of the fruit seller or the guard. Or the packet of bananas.

The author is professor, department of Development Sociology, Cornell University

Sri Lanka: saved by the bell

Lynda Gill

In Jaffna, you don't go to the supermarket. Vendors cycle to you, and they all have their own ring tones

Stop me and buy one ... a Sri Lankan fruit vendor sells king coconuts from his bicycle

In a world of internet shopping, shopping in Jaffna comes as a pleasant surprise; they do things a little differently here. The first tinkle of a bicycle bell can be heard at about 5.30am – the milkman on his bike, dispensing milk from an old metal churn into housewives' recycled bottles and jars. This discreet little tinkle is followed by the very much less discreet, irritating tune of the bread van. Dah da dah, dah da dah, dah da da dah. And again. And again. You wonder how much bread can possibly be needed on one small street.

A bit later, when you have just shaken off the tune of the bread van, a different, louder and even more persistent jingle: the ice-cream van. Competing with the bread van, the vendor has cranked up the volume and added bass. It's the Tom Jones of the van vendors: the funky beat promising sexy, irresistible ice-cream.

After all this aural stimulation, the apologetic tinkle of the fishmonger on his wiry old bike is a relief. The housewives swarm around, elbowing their neighbours out of the way to secure the best fish at the best price. The scales are brought out and the process of weighing and bargaining, adjusting and re-negotiating, begins. The fishmonger is followed by his friend the veg vendor, with his old wooden cart, selling fresh vegetables to accompany the fish, and papaya for dessert.

Throughout the day, a straggle of old men on old bikes pass by, offering services and goods – bicycle repairs, newspapers, soft drinks – each with a subtly different ring. My bell identification skills are elementary, but my neighbours are experts, scurrying out of the house only for specific rings. Then it's time to pick up the pace for the evening round. Bread, ice cream (again?), fish, vegetables, lottery tickets. Usually the vans stagger their visits, but sometimes they converge, resulting in competing tunes and frantic housewives.

In the brief lulls between musical retail activity the local temple starts up. There's always a festival: there are so many gods and all of them seem to demand noise. My sister phoned. What's all that noise, she said. Which one, I asked, the bread van, ice-cream van, fish man, temple, crows?

It's noisy, the tunes are irritating, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Internet shopping? No thanks, where's the fun in that?

How clever can we get?

By ROB WAUGH

Study suggests there is an 'upper limit' to how smart humans can be - there will never be a 'Supermind'

We put a lot of energy into improving our memory, intelligence, and attention.

There are even drugs that make us sharper, such as Ritalin and caffeine.
But maybe cleverer isn't really all that better. New research suggests that we may have evolved 'limits' on our minds, such as faulty memories, almost as a defence mechanisms.

Any new drug or technology that 'raised' human intelligence permanently could be dangerous.

A new paper published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, warns that there are limits on how smart humans can get, and any increases in thinking ability are likely to come with problems.

The authors looked to evolution to understand about why humans are only as smart as we are and not any smarter.

'A lot of people are interested in drugs that can enhance cognition in various ways,’ says Thomas Hills of the University of Warwick, who cowrote the article with Ralph Hertwig of the University of Basel. ‘But it seems natural to ask, why aren't we smarter already?’

Tradeoffs are common in evolution. It might be nice to be eight feet tall, but most hearts couldn't handle getting blood up that high.

So most humans top out under six feet. Just as there are evolutionary tradeoffs for physical traits, Hills says, there are tradeoffs for intelligence.

A baby's brain size is thought to be limited by, among other things, the size of the mother's pelvis; bigger brains could mean more deaths in childbirth, and the pelvis can't change substantially without changing the way we stand and walk.

Drugs like Ritalin and amphetamines help people pay better attention. But they often only help people with lower baseline abilities; people who don't have trouble paying attention in the first place can actually perform worse when they take attention-enhancing drugs.

That suggests there is some kind of upper limit to how much people can or should pay attention.

‘This makes sense if you think about a focused task like driving,’ Hills says, ‘where you have to pay attention, but to the right things—which may be changing all the time. If your attention is focused on a shiny billboard or changing the channel on the radio, you're going to have problems.’

It may seem like a good thing to have a better memory, but people with excessively vivid memories have a difficult life.

‘Memory is a double-edged sword,’ Hills says. In post-traumatic stress disorder, for example, a person can't stop remembering some awful episode. ‘If something bad happens, you want to be able to forget it, to move on.’

Even increasing general intelligence can cause problems. Hills and Hertwig cite a study of Ashkenazi Jews, who have an average IQ much higher than the general European population.

This is apparently because of evolutionary selection for intelligence in the last 2,000 years. But, at the same time, Ashkenazi Jews have been plagued by inherited diseases like Tay-Sachs disease that affect the nervous system.

It may be that the increase in brain power has caused an increase in disease.
Given all of these tradeoffs that emerge when you make people better at thinking, Hills says, it's unlikely that there will ever be a supermind.

‘If you have a specific task that requires more memory or more speed or more accuracy or whatever, then you could potentially take an enhancer that increases your capacity for that task,’ he says.

‘But it would be wrong to think that this is going to improve your abilities all across the board.’

Book Review

Sarath Amunugama - A full life
Review By Manik de Silva

In a labour of love, Sarath Amunugama’s two daughters, Ramanika Unamboowe and Varuni Fernando, have produced a lavishly illustrated coffee table book titled A full life offering a delightful cameo of a man, who neither became Prime Minister nor Mahanayake as impishly predicted by his Peradeniya chums of long ago - but came close enough to the former position.

Amunugama’s has indeed been a full life. As he has told his children, his great good fortune had been the fine education he received, first at Trinity College where he counted people like Gamini Dissanayake, Jayantha Dhanapala, Nihal Kappagoda, Nihal Rodrigo and Denzil Kobbekaduwa among his contemporaries and thereafter at the University of Ceylon in the golden years of its then Peradeniya campus.

I first met Amunugama in the Kandy home of Gananath and Ranjini Obeysekera in the sixties. I had been sent to Peradeniya by my first boss and mentor, Denzil Pieris, then editor of the Ceylon Observer, to do some stories on prevailing unrest on the campus. Ranjini had kindly offered to put me up for a couple of nights and late one evening Sarath Amunugama, probably GA Matale or Additional GA, Kandy, at the time, dropped in. He was bursting with enthusiasm for the ``loot’’ (no doubt material of sociological value) he had collected on some excursions to temples in the area.

Amunugama’s accomplishments are too well known to require re-telling. He was one of the brightest students, both at Trinity and at Peradeniya, in his day and it was a foregone conclusion that he would enter the coveted Ceylon Civil Service. He came second in an intake of eight and his decision to enter the elite administrative service was undoubtedly a loss to academia with his accomplishments in the university’s sociology departments well recognized by eminent scholars like Ralph Pieris, Stanley Tambiah, Gananath Obeysekera and Laksiri Jayasuriya who taught at Peradeniya in those days.

Though no longer a cabinet minister (in name), Sarath Amunugama is without doubt perhaps the most capable and accomplished of the serving political leadership. Given that the president holds the finance ministry, Amunugama as deputy minister, would in fact be the de facto minister for all intents and purposes. He also wears a second hat as senior advisor to the president, a position previously held by Basil Rajapaksa. It is a measure of the man that he did not reject a lesser title, but graciously helped the president to try to keep a cap on the number of ministers in a typical gentlemanly fashion. He could have easily said he would either serve in the cabinet or the backbench but that is not his way.

Unencumbered by ideological baggage, though once a Peradeniya `Trot’ who was elected General Secretary of the Economic Society by the University Trotskyites, Amunugama always talks sense in his public speeches. Never abrasive, he is carefully listened to wherever he speaks. He is candid and unafraid to express what he believes is right even though what he says may not exactly be politic.

Having known him well for over 40 years, enjoying many courtesies and kindnesses from him during my journalistic career, I can say without hesitation that he was a most unbureaucratic bureaucrat, friendly, efficient and decisive. As Director of Information, he was the Competent Authority responsible for running the press censorship during the JVP’s first adventure in 1971. It was a pleasure to work with him because even where he had to use his blue pencil, he would take the time to explain the reason why. He was never unreasonable.

As the Associated Press stringer then, a position bequeathed to me by Denzil Pieris when he left the country, I remember taking a cable to him for authorization for transmission by the Overseas Telecommunication Service. It was a scoop – naming a U.S. citizen shot dead while he rode a motorcycle through an insurgent-held area. ``Sorry, Manik, I can’t let you name the man. His family has not yet been notified and it wouldn’t be right for them to get the bad news off the AP wire. How did you get his name?’’

It was a friendly inquiry though I didn’t let out the secret. Although disappointed, I accepted his reasoning as fair. I, like every other correspondent who had business with the Competent Authority, knew that he would never stop a story if he possibly could. He was a friend of journalists and adored by the press officers posted by the Information Department to the various Ministries.

The 28 pages of text his daughters have written gives much more than the bare bones of potted biography offered in the sketches that Lake House publishes of all MPs after each election – undoubtedly a most useful reference volume. If Amunugama served longer as Chairman of the Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd., than the few months he did during the tail-end of the D.B. Wijetunga presidency, even that publication and more so the ANCL newspapers would have taken a new look. His Lake House avatar was merely a holding operation to assist his friend Gamini Dissanayake to attain the presidency. But that was not to be.

Amunugama was no pretender. Many previous chairmen of Lake House, Ranjit Wijewardene and Sunil Rodrigo among them, did not wish their pictures published in ANCL papers when they were in the saddle. That was an iron-clad rule. As editor of the Daily News during Amunugama’s short tenure at Lake House, I told him this and asked whether we were to keep him out of our pages. ``Don’t do that,’’ he said, ``I’m going into politics and publicity is useful.’’

As stated at the beginning of this review, A full life is lavishly illustrated. Sarath Amunugama, obviously, saved pictures and other memorabilia that has proved handy for the publication which includes a section of his George Keyt collection acquired during his Kandy days. He obviously had as good an eye for works of art as he did for the books he read voraciously throughout his life.

Although a public service salary would not support expensive tastes, he had like Ronnie de Mel, a predecessor in the finance ministry, invested wisely buying Keyt’s paintings. De Mel acquired his as a university student, astonishing his friends at what he paid for the paintings - a pittance of a few rupees compared to what they are worth today. Sarath would have probably paid more, having acquired his collection some years later.

The Amunugama girls take the reader seamlessly through their father’s many achievements from his school days at Trinity, the Peradeniya University, public service career, his assignment in the UN system as Director of the International Program for the Development of Communications at UNESCO in Paris (he got his Ph.D there) after serving a few months as Secretary-General of AMIC, the Asian Mass Communication and Information Center in Singapore. Some delectable anecdotes, as good as some of the stories that Amunugama, a raconteur par excellence sometimes narrates, is part of the text.

The authors have not said it all but they have placed their fingers where it matters – like Sarath’s move from provincial administration to the information field during the Dudley Senanayake government. The politics of the time and the dramatis personae come alive, people like G.V.P. Samarasinghe, the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (in addition to Defence and External Affairs), Neville Jayaweera, Chairman of SLBC, Anandatissa de Alwis, Permanent Secretary to J.R. Jayewardene’s Ministry of State from which the subjects information and broadcasting was taken away as Dudley-JR tension mounted.

Although the book is mostly pictures, the few pages of text has a lot of little known information – when JRJ, fighting two insurgencies in the north and south found himself confronted by a wave of anti-Indian feelings sweeping the country, he had to fall back on the political and administrative support of a small group led by Gamini Dissanayake. Then Indian High Commissioner in Colombo, J.N. Dixit, reviled as the ``Viceroy’’ says in his book Assignment Colombo: ``Jayewardene asked me to be in touch with Gamini Dissanayake and an intellectual associate of Dissanayake, Sarath Amunugama, for working out the details.’’

These nuggets include Amunugama’s friendship with G. Parthasarathy whom he met during his UNESCO days in Paris. Parthasarathy used to come there as a special envoy of Indira Gandhi. At a crucial time for Indo-Lanka relations, JRJ, having learned of Amunugama’s friendship with Parthasarathy from Gamini Dissanayake, used him to convey confidential messages.

Few would also know that Amunugama served some months as a visiting fellow at Harvard’s Department of Social Anthropology, courtesy Stanley Tambiah and some of the papers he produced at the time have been published in reputed journals.

Amunugama, though without any animosity to Premadasa, was drawn into the Democratic United National Front (DUNF) of Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamini Dissanayake perhaps because of his friendship with the latter. He also had an excellent relationship with Athulathmudali. Made a vice-president of the DUNF he was to later successfully negotiate and equitable solution to the rivalry between Dissanayake and Athulathmudali who both had presidential ambitions.

Later he was able to help broker the deal that took Dissanayake back to the UNP with President Wijetunga. Some UNP seniors, including the president, were initially hostile but Amunugama, a kinsman of Wijetunga who had served as Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting during Wijetunga’s tenure as Minister, was able to persuade the president to change his mind.

Amunugama was first elected to Parliament in 1994 from the Kandy district, having been invited to nurse Galagedera by President Wijetunga. He later defected to the CBK government along with five UNP seniors. Those who crossed with him were Wijepala Mendis, Nanda Mathew, Susil Moonesinghe and Chula Bandara. Of them, Amunugama and Mathew joined the Kumaratunga cabinet.

It would be useful if the authors consider publishing an abridged version of A full life as the text deserves a wider readership than the limited number who would have access to the luxury volume. It’s a fine read embellished by many good pictures.

Sarath Amunugama : a full life by Ramanika Unamboowe and Varuni Fernando.(Siripa Publishers, 149 pages, 2009)
Price: USD 142.95

Scouting Sri Lanka cricket talent in post-war north

By Charles Haviland
BBC News, Kilinochchi

In a large green field, its grass finely cropped, young cricketers are training in the late afternoon sun.

The youngest form a circle in one corner doing fielding practice while, in the middle, about 25 older boys get expert coaching in batting and bowling.

This ground has come a long way from its previous incarnation.

Here at the former headquarters of the Tamil Tigers, their leader, Prabhakaran, used to deliver his annual war speech on what was called Heroes' Day.

Today an altogether gentler figure, former Sri Lankan national team fast bowler, Ravindra Pushpakumara, gets rapt attention from the budding sportsmen as he demonstrates his skills.

After the civil war ended in 2009, the national cricket board chairman invited various coaches to work in the north but many declined, thinking it too far from Colombo. But Ravindra accepted.

Aspiring Tamil batsman Edin on the difference the coaching has made
"I thought it's better to go and help these people because they need not only cricket, but other things," he said.

"These boys - we need to give them a chance. We finished the 30-year civil war and this land and these people suffered a lot. They also missed a lot of the sports side. They only went to school and home, they didn't balance their life."

Freedom to play

Ravindra's job involves not just coaching but scouting for talent - which he is finding in abundance.

He believes that being deprived of modern conveniences in the war decades has made northern Sri Lankans fit. Many walk or cycle five or 10 kilometres to school.

"We need stamina to play cricket, and natural talent is there," he says.

He also says that back in the 1950s and 60s, northern Sri Lanka produced very good cricketers including fast-bowlers.

"Especially in fast bowling, tradition is still there, these children are carrying it."

Spin-bowler Ponnuchchamy Pangujan says he wants to play for the national squad one day
The boys love it and Ravindra has already taken some to Colombo to play with club sides or trial matches with the national Under-19 team.

One of the most promising is batsman Edward Edin.

The 19-year-old comes from Kilinochchi and, like everyone else from here, had to flee his home with his family and went through severe deprivation and horrors in the war zone in 2008-09.

"We didn't really know whether we would live or die," he says during a quick break from training.

"Now we look back on it and it just seems like a nightmare because now we can enjoy ourselves. Now we feel we can travel all over the country to play cricket."

Spin-bowler Ponnuchchamy Pangujan, 18, now captains the Under-19 side for the Northern Province. He pays tribute to Ravindra and Lakshita Herath, who is working as district and schools coach in Jaffna further north.

"We practise daily and improve our skills day by day.

"[War] was very hard, we were not going to other places for practice matches because the war and the routes were closed. But this time we go to other places and we practise."

It is notable that, apart from the recently retired legendary spin-bowler, Muttiah Muralitharan, there have been very few ethnic Tamils at the top of the sport in Sri Lanka for years.

Ravindra's coaching programme will spread a net over the talent the country has at its disposal. As the north is almost entirely Tamil-populated, it will also advance the chances of Tamil cricketers - although he does not like to see it in ethnic terms but in talent terms.

I ask Pangujan what his ambition is - knowing the answer.

"I want to play in the Sri Lanka team," he says in English. "Soon - next year."

'I was the best in the world with the offcutter'

The former South Africa fast bowler talks about what you ought to bowl to Tendulkar, digging poetry, nearly losing his eyes, and then some

I wasn't the best athlete. I had to generate pace through muscle and lots of gym work and strong legs. Over 100 metres, I think Ben Johnson would have beaten me by 20 metres.

We used to steal Jonty Rhodes' shirts and swap them for beer: 20 cases of beer or a case of brandy, a case of whiskey and six cases of beer. Every Friday he would go, "Chaps, I have lost another shirt, man. Please help me."

I was a hardworking cricketer. I didn't get it as easy as others. That made me appreciate it more than them.

We lived on a farm in the Free State . My dad was a farmer. My uncle - a big, fit uncle - used to hit tennis balls into the air for us, and we used to take catches. That is my oldest memory of cricket.

I had an action that allowed me to bowl outswing, and the stronger I got, the more the ball swung away.

We didn't really know of apartheid. We were probably very ignorant more than anything else. In our days the clubs had some coloured people - not black guys, because they were playing soccer - but it wasn't guys that ended up playing for the province or the country.

I became a lieutenant in the army at about 23-24. Wonderful. Absolutely brilliant when it comes to discipline. When it comes to knuckling down and focusing. Three o'clock you start waking up, 5 o'clock you are at breakfast, 7 o'clock, when the sun is out, it's half a day gone already. I wish some of our youth can go through some of this to become solid citizens.

I never had cricket heroes. I had rugby heroes. A sportsman like Daley Thompson was my hero. Clive Rice and Graeme Pollock and Garth Le Roux were the three guys I knew of.

The quarter-final in the 1996 World Cup, we got to the ground, had a look at the wicket and said, "Hansie [Cronje], you have got to win the toss. If you lose the toss, the team bowling second, spinners will take all the wickets." We lost the toss, we batted second. We lost eight wickets against their spinners.

There wasn't really that much discrimination at the ground level, but at the top level, where [non-whites] couldn't play for the country.

County cricket taught me how to bowl the offcutter, which is what you should bowl to Tendulkar all the time. I am not talking slower balls - the fast offcutters.

What do the players do nowadays? They don't even look at the public. Morne Morkel and Dale Steyn [the exceptions] are from my clan. South Africans are normally friendly people, but then you have got some of the private-school boys. Our captain is one of them.

I didn't know who Mandela was. The media wasn't allowed to write about apartheid. It was controlled by the government. There was no awareness. When I started studying, at about the age of 19-20, I started finding out about Mandela. So how many fingers can you point? Basically, media controls knowledge.

Everybody gets his own bowling action by accident. That's a fact. To change actions is hard. You can change angles and all.

I was one of the first Afrikaner guys breaking through the system. Corrie van Zyl is one. Allan Donald is one. Many years back some Afrikaners played, but they went to privileged schools. I was a countryside boy. Tough barrier to break down, very tough.

Sydney [1994] was a wonderful start to my career. Beating the No. 1 side on their home soil. Beating them on a spinner's wicket. I took 10 wickets, Shane Warne took 12. Because of offcutters, because of lbws, because of pace variations. It opened the door up for respect, for making a career out of [cricket]. To lose a match and then at the end to win it is what life is all about. We lost 11 of the 13 sessions in that match. Amazing, absolutely amazing.

I couldn't speak English. I learned English at school, but I could only understand and read and write. When I spoke English, I sounded stupid. Language is a terrible barrier. More than one can think.

I have got the jacket for the 1972 tour. The team was selected, but the tour didn't go ahead because of the pressure. For 20 years nobody played. We didn't know what to expect.

I nearly lost my eyes in the army. I was posted in the sports fields. These guys dropped off some lime that they use in building roads, and that lime when it touches water becomes a hard, solid thing, and it becomes heated up. The guys that were working there threw it in a big drum, and it started boiling and cooking and swelled up and blew. I was probably four metres from it. It hit me in the eyes. I was blind for six-seven days. They literally tied me to a bed, held me upside down and threw water into my eyes. For three hours, four hours. It was so sore I couldn't close my eyes, I couldn't open my eyes. It's amazing how you can go through that. Today if I close my eyes I can see a lot of spots because of it. I could have been completely blind. There are eight layers in the eye, and they said six of them were burnt off.

You need to have a wild experience to really enjoy a place, and I think you find that in India.

Allan Donald, he had a lot of pace, and because I was a little bit slower, they tried to play more shots off me, and with the away swing, in the first innings I always got wickets. In the second innings they would start blocking. In 1995 I was the best bowler in the world - No. 1 ranked. Then Allan Donald started taking more wickets, because they started attacking him and started seeing me out. It's amazing how it works if you have got a system where you have got two guys quick enough to take wickets.

I reckon I was the best in the world with that offcutter. Without slowing it down. It went whirrrr. And it worked like a bomb. I took a lot of wickets in England with offcutters. Grassy wicket, bowl offcutters. We had a game here where the West Indian A side had nine left-handers. I took eight of the nine. I could have used that more if we had played a lot of Test cricket in India.

I was absolutely furious with Hansie. I would have punched him. We got paid in our day by winning games. You got extra money by winning games. When we found out that he was involved in singly effecting stuff, I was furious.

The Aussie crowds hate you when you get there. But the moment you start playing well, they come and support you, which I have never seen anywhere else in the world. You need to earn your respect there. The moment I won that Sydney game, I was the best thing since sliced white bread in that country. They can turn around like that, because they are sport-knowledgeable people. That makes a big difference when you are touring there.

I couldn't hear a flippin' note of English when I played in Yorkshire. They sounded pissed every time.

Tony Greig said before the final day [Sydney Test, 1994] that South Africa have got a million-to-one chance of winning. At the post-match interview I told him, "One thing you must remember: South Africans never give up."

I used to vary my pace: 138-139kph was my average pace, but then I bowled the same delivery at 128ks an hour. That is one thing bowlers must learn. I don't see anybody varying his pace by 10ks. They all go 119 or 135. You can vary your pace by 5ks, 8ks an hour. That's when you get the midwicket catches, because the timing is a little bit different.

I would rub the ball in my armpit to make it as heavy as possible. It was not against the rules. The umpires moaned about it, but I said, "Page 40, rule 1". Anyway, spit is worse than armpit.

We were good ambassadors. The chances we took on the field to get the public on our side were calculated. How many times did we have tea time in a Test, and four or three of us stayed on the field and called the boys over the fence and said to the security guys, "F*** you, guys, relax man", and got them on and gave catches to them. And then we would give them our caps. The public loved us for that.

India and Pakistan are the most difficult places to bowl in. If I am a swing bowler, I can come back in the 20th over and still swing the ball. You have got no chance out there.

I studied to become a teacher. I always wanted to be a top rugby player or athlete. Then four players got injured in the provincial cricket team. I came from a third league to play a provincial game. I took six wickets against Western Province, and suddenly I was in the big world of cricket. I didn't even dream of cricket. Just like that, I got there. There was no money then, but that ego was enough for me - the recognition I got at university was enough for me to say, "I want more."

I played in one rebel tour. I played against the Mike Gatting rebels. We played to full houses. Our provincial games, full house. Rebel games, full house. They love sport in this country.

Hansie was the best captain I played under. But you must remember that he had the luxury of eight guys that were captains, and collectively they had 60-70-80 years of experience. A captain is as good as his senior players, knowledge-wise, ability-wise.

I could have become an international javelin thrower. I just hurt my back while throwing. I had a fusion - got big cuts on my back to fuse three vertebrae. Because of that I had stiff hamstrings most of my life. I made it through Test matches and rested enough to be playing the next one. I was one of the lucky ones to do a lot of gym work, a lot of training. That kept me strong.

South Africa aren't chokers. We play more finals than others. You have got to take a look at how many teams have excelled like us.

Our Transvaal teams could have played international cricket. The likes of Graeme Pollock, Garth McKenzie, Corrie van Zyl, Vince van der Bijl, Ali Bacher. They beat the other provinces in two, two and a half days. Bowl you out for 120-150, score 300, bowl you out for 150 again. Game over. Two days. Our sport was strong. There was enough money to coach, to take the game to the next level.

I am a scholar. I have got a library. I am probably a bit more educated in the niceties of the world.

Edgbaston 1999. Is the team a choker or did Klusener make a mistake? It is easy to brand a team. We were cruising. Five balls, one run, the best batsman in the world. Donald knew there was no run, but Klusener was already through. Choking is everybody freezing up and getting bowled out for 40.

I have always been a fan of transformation in players, but never have I liked transformation of coaches. The moment you get guys who are not good enough, and they haven't got the respect of the players, then they might as well be a manager. When it comes to coaching, you pick the best.

When do you start reading poetry? Forty onwards. You don't respect it before 40. Don't have time before that. I am a good six years into the stuff that matters. You don't read silly magazines. It's the next phase of life.

Sidharth Monga is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo

© ESPN EMEA Ltd.

An Interview with a Pak speed demon

by Abdul Habib (Please note that this is a file archive interview done on 4th August 2009)

Big names in the world of cricket like Brian Lara, Waqar Younis, Carl Hooper and even Shoaib Akhtar have said that Zahid was the fastest bowler they have have ever seen. Read on to learn more about this tale of what could've been...

Abdul Habib: Tell us about your mentor Nadeem Iqbal.

Mohammad Zahid: He was a very pacey fast bowler who opened the bowling for Multan region with Waqar Younis. Nadeem was faster than Waqar, he was another express pacer. He helped set a first class record by bowling out NBP for just 20 runs, Nadeem himself took 6 wickets for just 9 runs in the process.


Abdul Habib: How did you meet Nadeem and come to be coached by him?

Mohammad Zahid: When I was around 13/14 I was crazy about football and I used to play with my friends at a ground which was shared between games of cricket and football. One day I arrived and there were no football games going on so I picked up a ball and started bowling in one of the cricket games. Nadeem saw me bowling and was very impressed, he approached me and told me that I had natural speed. I wasn't really interested in cricket but Nadeem wouldnt take no for an answer so I joined the Gaggoo Club and started playing cricket. Nadeem taught me everything he knew about cricket, he didnt hold anything back. The amount of knowledge that Nadeem imparted only to me, I doubt Waqar and Wasim will ever give away that much knowledge over the course of their entire lives.


Abdul Habib: Have you seen Nadeem's giant left armer, Mohammad Irfan?

Mohammad Zahid: Yes. I saw him a few years ago, he looked ok then but I havent seen him since.


Abdul Habib: How did you get to play for Pakistan?

Mohammad Zahid: I was living in Saiwal in Multan when the trials for the Pakistan u19 team were happening, Miah Basharat (the President of the Multan Division) sent me to the trials on behalf of Multan region because he was impressed with my speed. There were thousands of boys at the trials hoping to secure a spot in the Pakistan u19 team, to me it seemed like every u19 boy in Pakistan was present for the trials. There were guys like Shahid Nazir, Rana Naved, Shoaib Akhtar, Azhar Mahmood, Mohammad Akram there to try out. I was called into the nets and as soon as Saleem Altaf (the Chief Selector) saw me bowl he selected me straight away. Although my performance hadn't been great, he selected me based on the potential he saw in me. I remember him saying this boy will go far.


Abdul Habib: So where was your first u19 tour for Pakistan?

Mohammad Zahid: I was sent to New Zealand where I bowled really fast, on my return to Pakistan I was signed up by PIA. I played 3 games for them and performed really well, then in the break between the domestic season I was called up to a Pakistan camp. I bowled really fast in the nets and Moin Khan recommended me to Zaheer Abbas, so I got a chance to play for Pakistan.


Abdul Habib: What were your best 3 spells of super rapid fast bowling?

Mohammad Zahid: Back in 1994 (or 1995) I played a one day game for Multan u19s vs NZ u19s at Sahiwal. I had loads of catches dropped but I still took 6 wickets. It was such a thrill to see the New Zealand batsmen backing away from the stumps when I sent down my scorching deliveries. Another one that comes to mind is the game where I took 12 wickets versus NBP, that was another game where catches were dropped off my bowling but I still took lots of wickets The 3rd match was the side game before the test match in New Zealand where I took 11 wickets. I only took around 7 wickets in that side game but I bowled better and faster in that game than I have in actual games. You wouldnt believe the amount of catches dropped off me in that game, if I had to say a number I'd say around a dozen or so. Even though in the Test match I took 11 wickets and was really fast, for me I bowled much better in that side game. (Those 11 wickets were made up of 8 lbws, 1 bowled, 1 caught keeper and 1 caught other)


Abdul Habib: What about your best performance in an International game?

Mohammad Zahid: My debut test match which I've mentioned above and the ODI in Australia where I took Brain Lara's wicket!


Abdul Habib: The game where Brian Lara said you were the fastest bowler he'd ever seen?

Mohammad Zahid: Yes. The game where Carl Hooper and Brian Lara called me the fastest bowler they'd ever seen. For me there hasnt been and there cant be any greater compliment because it came from two batsmen who'd grown up with the great West Indian fast bowlers of yore.


Abdul Habib: Tell us about that match and dismissing Brian Lara.

Mohammad Zahid: The night before the game I had a very high fever, the doctor spent the whole night trying to sweat the fever out of me. I stayed awake wrapped up in several blankets and continuously drinking cups of coffee all night long. I barely got any sleep and the doctor advised me against playing in the game. However Saeed Anwar and Waqar were unavailable for that game and Aamer Sohail had fallen and hurt his head so he couldnt play either. We were virtually down to 10 men and were struggling to field XI players. Wasim Akram called me and told me to get on the coach and come down to the ground to make up the numbers, so I went to the ground. When I got there Wasim took me to one side and said (he'd never spoken to me like this before or since) that to be a big player you have to play though pain and sadness. He said that great players make sacrifices for the team. As soon as he had said that I told him that I was ready to play the game.


Abdul Habib: I wish we had a few more players like that.

Mohammad Zahid: Thank you. In that game Lara was plumb lbw early on but it wasn't given and that made me really angry. My battle had begun, I had to take his wicket. He played a few overs and kept get beaten, then in the over where I took his wicket he was beaten on every ball before I took his wicket. I dont know if Lara was having a bad day or I was having a great day but he really did look clueless against me that day. It was after that match that he said I was the fastest bowler he'd ever seen.


Abdul Habib: You forced yourself into the Pakistan first team and became an automatic selection during an era when you were competing with the likes of Wasim, Waqar, Akhtar, Mo Akram and Ata Ur Rehman. How did that make you feel?

Mohammad Zahid: It's a source of great pride for me and the highlight of my career. It's something no-one can take away from me, the fact that I achieved that through my own blood, sweat and tears. It wasn't easy to get there or to get past so many talented and fast bowlers, I worked really hard to achieve that position in the starting lineup.


Abdul Habib: I did an interview with Mohammad Akram, he said that Waqar and Wasim didn't help young bowlers. He said they saw them as competition and closed them out.

Mohammad Zahid: I agree with him, what he said is the truth. Neither of them went out of their way to help anyone, nor did they give youngsters the help and guidance that they should have.


Abdul Habib: What was your experience with Wasim and Waqar?

Mohammad Zahid: They didn't help me out. They should have been grooming young players and looking to the future of Pakistan cricket but they only looked after themselves.


Abdul Habib: In 1997 Waqar gave an interview saying your bowling style was too demanding, were you aware of that?

Mohammad Zahid: No I didn't know about that at the time and he never said anything like that to me personally.


Abdul Habib: What was it like being part of the C&U Series in 1997 and being part of a Pakistan team that beat both Australia and the Windies in Australia?

Mohammad Zahid: I was very happy to be part of such a strong and successful team, in fact that team may have been one of the strongest in Pakistan's history. I'd never even dreamed of being part of success like that, I was glad my bowling had helped to contribute towards such a huge win for Pakistan against the two strongest teams in the world.


Abdul Habib: What do you feel was your fastest every delivery in any form of cricket?

Mohammad Zahid: It was during a side match in New Zealand before my debut test. That game is burned into my brain, I was just so fast that day. If there had been speed guns present then I'd have broken the world record several times in the same game!


Abdul Habib: What about the yorker to Lee Germon in your debut?

Mohammad Zahid: That was fast but nowhere near my fastest, I remember the yorker quite clearly. My bowling wasnt as fast as I can be in that game.


Abdul Habib: Were you faster than Shoaib Akhtar?

Mohammad Zahid: That's what everyone keep telling me including the wicket keepers and they would know best. Moin has kept to both of us at our fastest and he always says that I was faster than Shoaib. Even Shoaib will tell you the same thing, he's said it to lots of people many times and often mentions it to me when the subject comes up.


Abdul Habib: Are you aware that you have a lot of fans online who are convinced that you were the fastest bowler in the history of cricket?

Mohammad Zahid: No I'm not on the internet so I didn't realise. It's great to hear that I'm still remembered for my speed, please pass on my thanks to everyone for still remembering me.


Abdul Habib: Tell us about when you 'unofficially' clocked 100mph in New Zealand.

Mohammad Zahid: I was touring New Zealand with the Pakistan u19 team back in 1995 and I was still a few months away from turning 19. We played a couple of test matches and some one day games on that tour. During one of the matches (I think it was in Wellington) the venue was fitted with speed guns and I clocked 100mph on them a few times. No other bowler was getting close to that speed and it even made the papers the next day, I still have some newspaper clippings somewhere at home.


Abdul Habib: Who were the other Pakistani bowlers in your team and do you remember what speeds they clocked?

Mohammad Zahid: The other fast bowlers were Rana Naved, Azhar Mahmood and Adnan Naeem. It's over 14 years ago now so I dont remember exactly what speeds they were clocking but it wasnt anywhere close to 100mph, there was a clear difference in the speeds with or without a speed gun. Our coach on that tour was very strict about short pitched bowling, he didn't allow any of the other bowlers to bowl short. I was the only one who was allowed to do so because I was too quick for the batsmen. He told us that Zahid is the only one who can make short balls count so he's the only one who will be allowed to bowl them.


Abdul Habib: What would've happened if there had been speed guns in your day?

Mohammad Zahid: History would've been made many times because I would've kept breaking the 100mph barrier!


Abdul Habib: If you could go back to the start of your career, would you cut your speed to prolong your career?

Mohammad Zahid: If I could go back then I'd still bowl as fast as I could, I've no regrets about bowling fast. Speed was my identity, speed was what I was about. Speed was why everyone knew me and why batsmen feared me. There's no way I would compromise my speed for a longer career because it's better to be who you are than pretend to be someone you're not. Live your life to it's fullest, you may not live as long but at least you'll feel more alive in those few years than you otherwise would if you stretched your career out for decades of mediocrity. The most important thing for me is that when I look back I can truly say that I gave everything I had and so I don't regret any of it. However if I had my time again then there is one thing I'd change, I'd listen to my body rather than other people and I would rest when I was too tired and take better care of myself and my back.


Abdul Habib: What's your advice to youngsters who want to bowl fast?

Mohammad Zahid: The best training is repetition, bowl as many overs as you can in the nets and you will reach your optimum speed. Pace is natural, if you have it then practise will help you hone it.


Abdul Habib: What advice would you give youngsters to help prevent them getting injured?

Mohammad Zahid: I'd give them the advice that I never got when I started playing first class cricket. I wasn't a physically strong person, I had very little muscle on my frame and so my speed wasn't as good as it could've been. Although I was fit enough to run in and bowl at 100mph, the lack of muscle on my frame put too much pressure on body and due to that I became more injury prone. My advice to youngsters would be to stay fit, do lots of bowling in the nets and to keep a regular gym schedule.


Abdul Habib: I take it you're not talking about body building here?

Mohammad Zahid: (laughs) No, certainly not! Fast bowlers shouldn't be going to the gym to do body building. I'm talking about cardio and strengthening the muscles on your back, legs, arms and shoulders in order to prevent those areas becoming injury prone. As a fast bowler you really need to look after your back, that part of your body is crucial to all fast bowlers. But when you're strengthening your muscles you should be careful not to get bulky because that will make you stiff and restrict either your ability to bowl fast or negatively affect your stamina. I never did any of the above and that's the main reason that I got injured.


Abdul Habib: So you're saying that you could've bowled even faster?

Mohammad Zahid: If you've seen me during those days then you will know that I was nothing more than skin and bone, there wasnt a trace of muscle on me. Yet I was still generating the speeds that I did. Now imagine how fast I could've bowled if I'd been physically stronger and been able to bend my back properly when delivering the ball. Don't you think I'd have been even faster?


Abdul Habib: Do you still think that if you really wanted to, you could still bowl the odd one at 100mph?

Mohammad Zahid: It's going to be really tough, those speeds were achieved a long time ago and I'm in a lot of pain these days. However deep inside me, there's this little voice that keeps telling me that I can still do it. Sometimes when I'm bowling, I grit my teeth and really let myself go. On those occasions I'm positive that I'm unleashing some seriously rapid deliveries. Maybe it's not 100mph anymore but probably not that from it either.


Abdul Habib: How fit do you feel these days? Are you still taking pain killers before you bowl?

Mohammad Zahid: Before I go out to bowl I have to tightly strap my ankles, knees, shoulders and back. Pain is my constant companion now, we play each game side by side. It's always there following me around like my shadow but what can I do? I've come to accept that it is a part of my life and I've learnt to play through the pain.


Abdul Habib: How many overs can you bowl in a match now?

Mohammad Zahid: This year I've been bowling 15-20 over per innings so I can still play my role fully.


Abdul Habib: What are your chances of a return to the Pakistan team?

Mohammad Zahid: I did make a comeback in 2003 and despite having been through all those injuries I was still clocking around 90mph then! I made my return to first class cricket with Pakistan Customs after 2 or 3 years away and I feel I've been bowling pretty fast. Of course I would love to play for Pakistan again, who wouldnt? I'd like to have another shot at it before I retire.


Abdul Habib: You just mentioned that you've made a return to first class cricket after 2 or 3 years out, what were the reasons behind you not playing for that period?

Mohammad Zahid: It's not that I fell out of love with cricket but my heart was no longer in it. I kept getting dropped from my domestic team regardless of my performance and when you're getting dropped after performing well it's quite depressing. You can't see any way forward and inconsistent chances sap your morale, so I left cricket because of that.


Abdul Habib: Did you ever bowl to Afridi or Ijaz Ahmed?

Mohammad Zahid: I've bowled to Afridi many times, from the junior level upwards.


Abdul Habib: Afridi loves to dominate the bowling, did you ever have challenges in the nets to see who was more dominant?

Mohammad Zahid: (laughs) No, nothing like that. Afridi would never challenge the fast bowlers in the nets, especially not me. He was always careful around me and didnt mess around, he would even avoid eye contact when the nets were on.


Abdul Habib: But what about when you did come face to face in the nets, did you try and rattle his cage sometimes?

Mohammad Zahid: (laughs) I never got the chance to try. As soon as he saw me, he would call out and say 'lala araam se' (go easy big brother)


Abdul Habib: (laughs) What about Ijaz Ahmed?

Mohammad Zahid: We've played against each other at the domestic level but he didnt ever dominate me like I've seen him do to other bowlers.


Abdul Habib: We've all heard the stories of Inzamam thrashing Waqar and Wasim in the nets, when they were both at their prime. How did Inzi handle Zahid in his prime?

Mohammad Zahid: Inzamam is a different story altogether, he was always too good. I never saw him impressed with what I did, it didnt matter how fast I was bowling to him he just wasn't bothered by it. It didn't matter if I was bowling to him in the nets or in a match, the result was the same. It used to amaze me that even when I was bowling at full tilt and holding nothing back, Inzi would still be playing me quite comfortably. I've never seen another batsman who has so much time when playing the ball.


Abdul Habib: Who was the most difficult international batsman you bowled to?

Mohammad Zahid: In my prime I've bowled to Lara, Taylor, Sachin, the Waughs etc but I didn't feel that I was struggling against any of them. Any time I struggled in a game it was because of my own fitness or rhythm. But when I lost my speed after returning from injuries, I began to feel human. I came to the realization that without my speed I would have to learn other ways with which to take wickets, it wasn't an easy fact to accept.


Abdul Habib: Tell us about your injury. Who was your captain and when did it happen?

Mohammad Zahid: It happened by accident during fielding practise, I was working on diving to stop the ball when I hurt myself and ended up getting whiplash. This was one day before the 2nd test match vs Sri Lanka at Colombo in 1997. Although Wasim was the captain at the time, he was injured for that series and so Rameez Raja took over the captaincy. During the match the injury got a lot worse and I kept going to Rameez to tell him that I couldnt bowl because I was in too much pain. I stressed that it wasn't a good idea for me to keep bowling but Rameez kept re-assuring me that it was probably only a niggle and that I would be fine. Myself and Shahid Nazir were the only two fast bowlers in that match.


Abdul Habib: So you told him that you didn't think you should be bowling?

Mohammad Zahid: It wasn't just me, Saleem Malik kept going up to Rameez and telling him the same thing. Saleem was saying to Rameez that if he didn't stop bowling me then my injury would get worse but Rameez was convinced it was just a niggle and said not to worry and to keep on bowling.


Abdul Habib: Are the flat pitches we prepare in Pakistan the main reason for so many of our fast bowlers getting injured?

Mohammad Zahid: It's one of the reasons, nobody would deny that. But then you have to remember that it's because of those same flat pitches that we produce so many express bowlers. In helpful conditions fast bowlers dont need to go all out like they have to on flat tracks, on flat tracks a bowler has to put everything into his bowling and that's one of the reasons why we have so many speedsters. After my test match debut Imran arranged a meeting with me and taught me about how to get the most out of reverse swing. He said that in order to get extravagant reverse swing you have to give the ball as much air as possible because the moment the ball hits a flat Pakistani pitch it kills the swing and movement. He taught me that the longer the ball stays in the air the more it will swing and the harder it will be to play. The reason I mentioned that was because you asked me about flat Pakistani pitches, the only help a fast bowler gets on those pitches is with reverse swing because those pitches rough up the ball very quickly. In order to make the most of reverse swing you need to be able to generate express pace and thats why our pitches produce so many express bowlers. Because our bowlers cant get away with bowling within themselves and letting the conditions do the rest. Our bowlers have to put all their energy into each delivery. Coming back to your question about the causes for injuries, I would say a lack of proper education about fitness is a bigger reason for injuries than flat pitches.


Abdul Habib: So getting back to your injury, where did you get it treated?

Mohammad Zahid: It was treated in Nottingham, England. I'd signed to play county cricket with Nottinghamshire and arrived in the UK carrying my injury from the test series. It wasn't until I reached the UK that I was diagnosed with stress fractures to my back. Nottinghamshire were very good about it and the took care of the costs and the treatment straight away.


Abdul Habib: But you suffered the stress fractures whilst on national duty, wasn't it the PCB's responsibility to take care of the costs and the treatment?

Mohammad Zahid: Majid Khan was the head of the PCB at the time and he told me that they wouldn't pay for me to get it treated straight away. They wanted me to return to Pakistan where I'd be checked out by PCB's own doctors and then a decision would be made on whether or not they would pay for the treatment. The county on the other hand were offering to pay for me to be treated straight away because they knew injuries of this nature need to be dealt with fast.


Abdul Habib: That was very nice of them, I guess their insurance must've covered it.

Mohammad Zahid: I don't know, maybe it did. I accepted the county's offer because it was better than catching a long haul flight back to Pakistan, waiting around to be tested and then waiting for the results. The PCB's actions didn't make any sense to me, by travelling I would risk aggravating my injury and even if the PCB agreed to pay for the treatment they might just end up sending me back to the UK to have it done. Then doubts began creeping into my mind, what if the PCB did the tests and decided they wouldnt pay for my treatment? I would've turned down Nottinghamshire's offer and be left with serious stress fractures but no help from the PCB either. So that's why I accepted Nottinghamshire's offer and I'm very thankful to them for all that they did for me when I needed their help.


Abdul Habib: That's disgraceful from the PCB, especially considering the way they've showered money on Shoaib over the years.

Mohammad Zahid: They did help Shoaib and they were right to do so but at the same time they should've done the same for me and others in my position as well.


Abdul Habib: In 2003/2004 Mohammad Sami was constantly clocking 95mph+ but he never converted his speed into performance, what went wrong with him?

Mohammad Zahid: Sami was a genuine express pacer, he had the sort of speed which could've seriously troubled batsmen. However he couldnt work the pitch, there was no help for him off the deck. After pitching his deliveries used to come in dead straight and because he wasn't tall he didn't get even get extra bounce off the pitch. During Waqar's last few years (when he was captain) he used to take Sami around with him, Waqar put an awful lot of work into Sami at that time. He tried very hard to make him into a successful bowler but it didn't work. Waqar used to tell Sami that his wrist breaks away when releasing the ball and that Sami needed to keep his wrist upright till after he'd released the ball. Waqar said that this problem took the bite out of Sami's bowling but Sami couldnt keep his wrist upright.


Abdul Habib: What's your opinion on Sohail Khan.

Mohammad Zahid: He quick but he's not express pace, he will have to put a lot of effort into his bowling if he wants to make it at international level.


Abdul Habib: If you were his coach what would you advise him?

Mohammad Zahid: He's too bulky, too stiff. If he wants to make the most of his speed then he needs to get leaner and work on his fitness. His arm needs to be straighter, it comes to the side a bit and that's not good. If Sohail was express pace then wherever he landed the ball he would trouble the batsman but he isn't so he needs to learn variation if he wants to be successful.


Abdul Habib: What about Mohammad Talha?

Mohammad Zahid: He's impressive, I'd say he's better than Sohail. Talha needs to work on his run-up and his fitness levels. He's very skinny like I was at his age and he needs to bulk up a bit to give his upper body more support. Talha's quick but not impressively so and he's already suffering from back problems. He had to change his action because his previous action was dangerous and putting him in too much pain. There's a lot of hard work in Talha's future and most of all he has to be very careful with his body to avoid unnecessary injuries.


Abdul Habib: Have you seem Mohammad Aamer?

Mohammad Zahid: Yes I've seen him and he's very good but he's barely 18, too young at the moment.


Abdul Habib: Weren't you around 18 when you debuted?

Mohammad Zahid: (laughs) Yes, you're right! I was around the same age. I played a game against him earlier this year and I think he was carrying an injury. He's a good bowler but he needs time to learn.


Abdul Habib: Do we have any super quick bowlers lurking in domestic cricket waiting to take us all by surprise?

Mohammad Zahid: No, we dont. To be completely honest with you I havent even seen anyone on the domestic scene whom I'd call consistently fast let alone approaching express pace. It saddens me to think that just 10 years ago each domestic team had at least one bowler who was consistently clocking over 90mph. In those days it wasnt a big deal for a Pakistani bowler to clock 90mph nobody would get excited by it. But these days if we see a player clock 140k then 'poore Pakistan mai shor mach jaata hai' (the whole of Pakistan starts shouting his name).


Abdul Habib: (laughs) That's so true!!

Mohammad Zahid: In those days we had so many 90mph bowlers like Aamer Nazir, Mohammad Akram, Shahid Nazir, Rana Naved, Shoaib, myself, etc. Back then no-one would pay any attention to a Pakistani bowler clocking 90mph but these days when Sohail Khan goes over 145kph it's literally a street party. Please don't take my statements as a criticism of bowlers like Sohail and Talha because they are our future and we must back them all the way. All I'm doing is putting their speeds into perspective with what we had 10 years ago.


Abdul Habib: I totally agree with you, also Mohammad Akram said the same thing you've just said.

Mohammad Zahid: Well Akram should know because he broke into a very strong Pakistan bowling lineup himself and was a very fast bowler in his own right. He was much faster than anyone coming through these days.


Abdul Habib: What are your best memories from your career?

Mohammad Zahid: The fact that I played for Pakistan and performed. I used to play cricket for fun, I'd never thought I'd play a test match for Pakistan so just playing was a highlight for me. Also I can never forget my debut test vs New Zealand.


Abdul Habib: What do you Pakistani express pacers have against New Zealand?

Mohammad Zahid: What do you mean?


Abdul Habib: You all totally wreck New Zealand early on in your careers.

Mohammad Zahid: (laughs) Koi Zaati Dushmani Nahi Hai (there's no personal enmity at work), I guess their batsmen just struggle to play express pace.


Abdul Habib: What's your worst memory?

Mohammad Zahid: Getting injured and all the problems that resulted from it.


Abdul Habib: What are the best compliments you've received?

Mohammad Zahid: Brian Lara and Carl Hooper calling me the fastest bowler they'd ever seen, that'll stay with me. Once when I met Geoff Boycott and he pulled my shirt up to look at my back and he asked how on Earth I could generate pace like that from such a skinny and weak body (laughs). I remember compliments from Richie Benaud, the Chappells and many other commentators about my speed and bowling in those days. It was a great time for me, so many compliments and so many people praising me.


Abdul Habib: Were you ever approached by the ICL?

Mohammad Zahid: No, I havent been playing cricket for the last few years. I only started again this season.


Abdul Habib: What lies in the future of Mohammad Zahid? A coach, a commentator or something else?

Mohammad Zahid: I love coaching, it's a passion of mine. I have a level 2 coaching qualification from England and I will be going for the level 3 qualification as well. I want to work in the real Pakistan with those kids from small villages that want to play for Pakistan from their heart. The sort of people who would cut off their leg just to get a chance to play for Pakistan. It's my dream to help these sorts of kids who dont stand a chance of playing without people taking an interest in them.


Abdul Habib: It's been a pleasure talking to you and best of luck for the future

Mohammad Zahid: Thank you and my salams to all my fans, thank you for remembering me.

Indian fast-bowling clinic sued for gross incompetence

R Rajkumar

Bowlers blame academy for loss of pace, hair and sex appeal

Jurors deliberated late into the night in Chennai yesterday as they tried to come to a decision on whether or not to penalise coaches at the MRF Pace Academy for alleged malpractice and gross incompetence.

A number of prematurely aged current players and ex-India internationals, all of them medium-pace trundlers in their mid-thirties and forties, have sued several officials, including head coach Dennis Lillee, for malpractice regarding compromised bowling actions and speed levels they say would never have befallen them had they been informed of the risks before joining the clinic.

"Yes, you may not get the hair gel ads where they surround you with beautiful women, but there'll always be Advanced Hair Studios"

According to prosecutors in the case, pace-bowling trainers at the clinic went about taking promising young bowlers with raw pace and "sucking the passion out of their bowling like living marrow from a healthy bone".

As a result of the training received at the clinic, the bowlers allege that, ironically, they suffered a marked decrease in pace, and one of them (Venkatesh Prasad, who understandably wished not to be named in this article) had in fact emerged from the experience a legspinner.

Aside from the main criminal complaint, the bowlers are also suing the clinic for associated collateral damages, including loss of sex appeal, loss of potential increased revenue from advertising had they indeed become fast bowlers of some repute and thereby possessed said sex appeal, a lack of success at being able to "score" with the opposite sex, an inability to justify growing long hair, and, perhaps the worst charge of all - for having irrevocably developed safe, predictable personalities only too happy to sacrifice risk in favour of leading lives of quiet, military-medium desperation.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, another product and former patient of the clinic, Munaf Patel, said he regretted the day he made the decision to join the coaching centre. "Before going there, I had pace, I had swing. I could see fear in the batsman's eyes. Could smell it, even. I mean, just look at some of my old videos on Youtube. It's like I'm a different person. Hell, even I had long hair back then. Look at me now. I bowl wicket to wicket as per what was taught to me, and have all the aggression and vitality of a half-hearted fart that's been locked in an airtight room without sunlight for two weeks straight. Don't even get me started on what's happened to my hair."

Meanwhile the Indian government said it will be appointing a team to look into claims that the so-called pace foundation was in fact a top-secret Australian project to undermine Indian fast-bowling talent. According to reports, the government was faced with a tricky chicken-or-egg scenario, whereby it needed to determine which came first, the academy or the lack of fast-bowling talent in the country, before it could formulate the next step in the investigation.

Chennai's police commissioner JK Tripathy told the court that when his officers broke into Mr Lillee's office to take him into custody, the legend leaned back in his chair, smiled, lit a cigar and said, "Well, looks like the gig is finally up, boys. No use fighting it, you may as well take me in. I've had a good run. Took you long enough to catch on, though, didn't it?"

Assistant coach TA Sekar, who now works with the ironically named Delhi Daredevils, refused to apologise to the velocity-challenged victims, let alone admit to having done anything wrong. "We did what we thought was best," he explained to the court. "When we saw a bowler with promise and raw pace, we immediately told him to adhere to the time-honoured tradition, here in India, of line and length. This was because at the academy we like to think that we build not just strong pace bowlers but strong characters. And there is a lot to be learned from line and length: values such as restraint, mind-numbing perseverance when faced with a distinct lack of success, and, my personal favourite, love."

At this point the court was disrupted when someone in the crowd pushed forward and tried to throw a pie at Mr Lillee. It later turned out the assailant was none other than once-potential Indian fast bowling legend Atul Wassan. Mr Wassan was thwarted in his attempt at getting at his victim by defence attorney Ram Jethmalani, who heroically belied his age by reaching across his client and deflecting the thrown pie. After the commotion subsided, and Mr Wassan was being led away by bailiffs, Lillee could be seen magnanimously appealing to the judge: "Please, let him go. He's just practising what we've taught him."

The case continues.

R Rajkumar hopes that writing about cricket helps justify his watching it as much as he does to the people in his life who wonder where the remote control's disappeared to.

All quotes and "facts" in this article are made up, but you knew that already, didn't you?

Were Sri Lankans the earliest tourists of the world?

The maidens that adorn the Sigiriya rock have inspired many an ancient traveller to write verses on the famed Mirror Wall

The world-famous Mirror Wall at Sigiriya reveals thriving tourism from ancient days

By Rajitha Weerakoon

Domestic-tourism may not figure as an important component in today’s tourist roadmap. But graffiti scribbled on the Mirror Wall (Kaetapat pavura/kaetabita) at Sigiriya reveal that there had been quite a load of Lankan tourists travelling from as early as the sixth century AD, long before tourism saw the light of day in the West.

During a discussion on Sigiriya when Dr. Raja De Silva, Retired Commissioner of Archaeology forwarded his theory that Sigiriya was a Mahayana monastery and the frescoes were paintings of Goddess Tara, Dr. Roland de Silva, Retired Director-General of the Central Cultural Fund raised the question “Was Sigiriya the earliest tourist-site in Asia?” in which case Sri Lankans would be the earliest Asian tourists? He was quoting from Sigiriya graffiti deciphered and translated into English from the eighth to the tenth centuries AD by Professor Senarath Paranavitana.


The maidens that adorn the Sigiriya rock have inspired many an ancient traveller to write verses on the famed Mirror Wall
But Sigiriya, whether this isolated rock monument was King Kassapa’s (477- 495AD) abode, a representation of God Kuvera’s Alakamandawa or a Mahayana Temple, was an architectural marvel with exquisite decorative work, sculpture, well-planned landscapes, ponds, fountains and a tantalizing art gallery which drew Sri Lankans to the site from many parts of the island.

The spontaneous outbursts left behind in the form of free verses by these random visitors on the Mirror Wall give evidence of the fascination Sigiriya had held for them whose visits extended from the 5th to the 13th centuries with more active visitations being made from the 8th to the 10th centuries. Verses ceased appearing in the 13th century with the jungle tide taking over Sigiriya coinciding with the shift of the capital from the North Central Province (NCP).

Whereas in Europe, Dr. de Silva said tourism was “leisure education” in Greece and Italy for scholars and cultured tourists of colonial Europe and according to the Oxford English Dictionary “tourism was born in the 17th century and the Englishmen were the first to practise it.”

Over thousand years prior to this, it was a cultured lot who made the trek to Sigiriya as well. But what made the Lankan tourists unique was that they left behind verses which expressed their individual views on their visits and their feelings of what they saw in beautiful stanzas on the shimmering Mirror Wall while giving us an indication of the literacy-level that prevailed in the first Millenium.

“(Hail!) the resplendent rock named Sihigiri captivates the minds of those who have seen (it) as if (the mountain) Mundalind, which was adorned by the King of Sages (i.e. the Buddha) has descended on the earth.” (verse 82)

And, “We saw at Sihigiri, the King of Lions whose fame and splendour remain spread in the whole world.” The pride they felt had spilt over to the verses.(verse 37)

About tourist-arrivals they wrote thus: At the present time, hundreds of thousands of householders remain clinging to this. (They) look at this a hundred thousand times in order to impress in their memory what there is at Sihigiri. (verse 130)

The legend of Sigiriya itself may have set the tone as a tourist attraction with its theatrical backdrop of “palace coups,” “court drama” and the predicament of a great King. But what we find is that most of the tourists had become captives of the Sigiri damsels as thousands of verses written in their dedication illustrate.

“Svasti! (Hail!) I am Agboy. I wrote this. Like a vatkol flower entangled in a blue katrol flower, the golden coloured one who stood together with the lily coloured one will be remembered at the advent of the evening!” (Verse 334)

Not only romance but sensual feelings had been expressed in abundance by these early tourists. “Prosperity! When (I) saw the lonely woman, my mind inclined itself (to her and she) took (to herself) my eye. If (you) having seen, have not accepted me (as your lover,) heart was never aflame in former days…”(verse 51)

There had been complaints made too by disappointed lovers: Ah! This (manner of) standing of yours o deer-eyed damsel, is indeed (that) of not having known the (very) name of intimacy…..pleasure has been received by others. When you are come (you say that there is) no intimacy (in me.)”(verse 31)
For those who were curious to know the numbers of damsels that adorned the Sigiriya wall, graffiti written in an earlier period provides the answer. “ ……..five hundred damsels who ( in their) splendour are (like unity) the crest jewels of the King.” (verse 61)

Professor Nimal De Silva, Chairman of the UDA at the time the discussion was held offering his views on the damsels said that the western façade of the rock of 30 by 100 metres plastered and painted was once one canvas and may have looked like a “cheettha redde” (floral-printed chintz) with female figures scattered all over. This delightful mural indeed would have been a feast to the eye of the earliest tourists before it was subjected to the ravages of nature.

But what evidently fascinated the tourists was the mystery that surrounded these voluptuous ladies. “…..the deer-eyed ones do not speak, (remaining) in the self-same manner in which they have severally been painted. I am prince (Apa) Bamdi Dapul” (verse 74)

And of their identity, even those who scribbled verses just a century later from the historically accepted time of Sigiriya origin of the fifth century seemed to have been ignorant of it. Why was their identity shrouded in mystery?

In the relatively recent past, H.C.P. Bell identified the damsels as ladies of Kassyapa’s court going towards the shrine of Pidurangala. Paranavitana suggested that they represent lightning princesses and cloud damsels. Dr. Ananda Coomaraswamy felt that they are apsaras following South Asian tradition while the theory that of Dr. Raja De Silva was that they were representatives of Goddess Tara. Quoting from an ancient text he said, “ Tara holds in her left hand a lotus which she opens with the right hand and she is a heavy breasted lady.” One or two graffitis described the frescoes as Devi or Goddess.

So, while the damsels had guarded their identity for well over 1500 years, most of the tourists had identified themselves, their position/profession and the place or the province from where they arrived. This was an era when travelling was by no means easy and only those who could afford made it to Sigiriya. Thus most were the elite which included royalty, state officials, physicians and ladies of the King’s harem. But there are also verses written by soldiers, metal workers, archers and Bhikkhus amongst others. And they had come from Mahapatanju, Siripiti, Weligama, Ritigala and Polonnaruwa …….from Uturu Pasa, Padi Pasa and Ruhuna.

“Hail! I am Je(t-ma)la, who came from Polonnaruwa. I wrote the verse. …….” (Verse 34)
“Hail! We, the 3 persons who are the apprentices of A(bo)hi Nilal, the olkamuna at (Du) natura-Na-veher wrote this.” (Verse 76)

The Palace Guard Poyal’s song was “having seen (them,) death does not perturb me.” (verse 68)
The pageant of tourists include amongst others Saladala of the house of Ka(na), the keeper of books, Kitala, the guard of the bedchamber from Sapugasa-vati, Agbohi, a washerwoman from Valigam, Lady (Tisa,) wife of Lord K(itag)bo, Lady-in-waiting of princess Jet, Bohodevi, the private secretary of Prince Mihindal and Vijurala-bata from Ruhuna.

The woman from the King’s harem wrote “Hail, I am Friar Sirina, a resident of Tavalpa. Having lived in the King’s harem, we shall certainly not go outside in his absence thus reflecting they are as if they have stopped and are standing looking forward)” (verse 90) – a guess made that the damsels had been women of Kassyapa’s harem.

Some of the verses according to Professor Paranavitana had been written in the fifth century and therefore, one could see the development of ideas over several centuries. A few had been written in Sanskrit and some in the Nagari script around the 9th century. About six verses had been written in the Tamil language between the 11th-the 12th centuries.

These travellers had obviously carried with them the pen of the time – the “panhinda”(quill) – a custom that may have existed among the literate travellers. And some of the verses had been written by tourists while standing and some from the seated position.

The discovery of miniature terracotta figures of Sigiriya damsels during excavations is a reflection of the kind of tours that existed which illustrates that in the first millennium, tourists had been carrying away even souvenirs that represnted Sigiriya. Perhaps there were souvenir-sellers doing brisk business with the loads of tourists who were visiting the site?

While “hundreds of thousands” had been climbing the hill, there had not been an absence of concern among the tourists about pollution as this verse indicates: I know also how Sihigiri had been ruined by these (people.) Stop, o faithless ones as there are more people with good taste.” (verse 81)