Last Friday (17) marked the 43rd anniversary of one of Sri Lanka’s darkest chapters in its cricketing history.
This was when a team skippered by the late Bandula Warnapura known as ‘AROSA Sri Lanka’ undertook a tour of the ‘Cuckoo Land’ of South Africa in 1982 as it was commonly called then.
Their actions not only breached an international boycott, while it forever tarnished Sri Lanka’s sporting image, with the South Asian country becoming the first non-white team to tour the ICC ostracised cricketing nation.
Warnapura who was Sri Lanka’s first Test captain and his rebel players, were promptly slapped with a 25-year ban by the then President of the Board of Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka (BCCSL) the late Gamini Dissanayake.
The incident put paid to not only the international career of Warnapura, but also several other players who were destined to go places in the sport at the time.
Among those whose careers came to a crashing halt were Ajith de Silva (widely acknowledged as the finest left-arm leg-spinner produced by Sri Lanka, who could not parley his talents to the outside world), Mahesh Gunathilaka (widely perceived to be the best wicket-keeper ever produced by this country), the late Anura Ranasinghe, Lalith Kaluperuma and Bernard Perera.
The others who saw their respective international careers stalled due to their actions at the time, were Hemantha Devapriya, Tony Opatha, Nimalal Hettiarachchi, Jerry Woutersz, Lanthra Fernando, Flavian Aponsu, Susantha Karunaratne and Bandula de Silva.
The actions of Bandula Warnapura and his men saw them defying the then UNP-led Government’s stance to refrain from any sporting contacts with the then apartheid-fuelled regime of South Africa.
However, eight years down the road the quarter century lasting ban slapped on Warnapura and his team, was rescinded by the late President R. Premadasa, allowing a few of the rebels to take an active part in cricket-related activities.
The 1982 rebel team was given the moniker ‘AROSA Sri Lankan XI’ with the ARO in the team name standing for the first three initials of Anthony Ralph Opatha or popularly known as Tony Opatha, who was the team manager cum player.
In fact, Opatha had played the decisive role from behind the scenes in arranging the tour to the Republic and Colin Rushmere-a South African lawyer had even wanted two of the best batsmen in the Lankan team Roy Dias and Duleep Mendis to confirm the duo’s participation as well.
But, by some quirk of fate both of their passports had been held by the team manager, preventing them from joining the rebel tour.
This as destiny would have it thus saved Sri Lanka two of its finest batting gems from falling prey to the lucre dished out by the South African Cricket Union then helmed by Dr. Ali Bacher and Geoff Dakin.
History would have it that the tour to South Africa was a disaster for AROSA Sri Lanka, with the team failing to win a single game being soundly beaten in the unofficial One-Day and Test matches by their hosts.
But, those who went on the tour despite earning enough money to settle down and build houses had reportedly faced social stigma and unemployment afterwards.
Of the 14-man AROSA Sri Lanka team Flavian Aponsu had successfully transitioned to international cricket when he had represented the Netherlands having relocated to that country, at the 1996 Cricket World Cup.
Of the rest both Warnapura who passed away in 2021, Devapriya and Woutersz, managed to successfully integrate with the cricket administration, coaching and managerial side of things, while the sun had truly set on the rest by the time of the lifting of the ban by the former President.
Be the first to comment