Sri Lanka’s first Test proved the last for Derek Underwood - sporting bygones

ENGLAND’S two-Test tour of Sri Lanka, which was abandoned over coronavirus fears, would have been played 40 years after they had provided the opposition for the host’s inaugural Test match.
Derek Underwood: Banned for joining rebel tour.Derek Underwood: Banned for joining rebel tour.
Derek Underwood: Banned for joining rebel tour.

The one-off fixture was played in Colombo in February, 1982 and saw England run out seven-wicket winners.

Sri Lanka were the eighth Test-playing country, having gained full member status the previous July.

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Some saw it not simply as marking their arrival as a force in world cricket, but also as confirming their rising status and importance as an independent nation.

Cricket had long been a part of Sri Lanka’s DNA.

The club game had been played there for a good 150 years, and Sri Lanka had long been a stop-off for English teams en route to Australia.

Ceylon, as it used to be called, provided an agreeable diversion and the opportunity for practice/rest.

Sri Lanka had been playing one-day international cricket since the 1975 World Cup in England and were ready to take the next step.

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England’s visit in February, 1982 followed a six-Test series in India which Keith Fletcher’s tourists won 1-0.

The Sri Lanka leg of the tour comprised two one-day internationals, followed by the one-off Test, England winning the first ODI at the Sinhalese Sports Club in Colombo by five runs despite a batting collapse which saw them lose their last seven wickets for 20 in registering 211, the hosts responding with 206-8 from their 45 overs.

Sri Lanka won the second ODI at the same ground the following day by three runs, England failing to chase 216 after this time losing their last five wickets for nine runs.

Needing 14 off the last two overs, they lost four of those wickets to run-outs and the other to a skied catch, the crowd invading the pitch at the end and lighting celebratory bonfires in the stands.

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Although both ODIs were played in front of capacity crowds of 20,000, the Test at the nearby P. Saravanamuttu ground was poorly attended.

More than £100,000 had been spent on modernising the venue in the months since Sri Lanka were given Test status, lifting the capacity to over 20,000.

But despite the hype, hullabaloo and historic nature of Sri Lanka’s first Test, only 10,000 or so were present for the start of the game, setting a trend that continued throughout.

According to Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, this was attributable to “high admission prices, television coverage and, disturbingly, the public’s preference for one-day cricket,” resulting in “a saddening lack of atmosphere”.

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There had been controversy in the build-up to the game when England captain Fletcher expressed concern about the pitch being, in his eyes, excessively watered.

The Times, in one of cricket’s most magnificent misprints, said that Fletcher made his observations when the players arrived for “early morning bets”.

Fletcher could not quite get his head around the fact that the country had changed its name from Ceylon to Sri Lanka in 1972 and, much to the amusement of the travelling press corps, he kept on inadvertently referring to it as “Sri-lon”, thereby hedging his own bets, so to speak.

The Essex batsman stirred further controversy by saying that “Sri-lon” were not even of County Championship standard, although he added the caveat that they were a difficult proposition in home conditions.

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Despite dampness caused by the watering of the pitch, Sri Lanka captain Bandula Warnapura chose to bat first on winning the toss.

Warnapura was an early casualty, caught in the gully by David Gower off Bob Willis for two. The hosts slid to 34-4 as Willis and Ian Botham each took two wickets, at which point Warnapura wore a worried expression.

However, in easing conditions in the afternoon, Ranjan Madugalle (65) and Arjuna Ranatunga (54), an 18-year-old left-hander still at school, shared 99 for the fifth-wicket, helping Sri Lanka to a final total of 218.

Derek Underwood, the Kent left-arm spinner, finished things off by taking 5-28, Botham returning 3-28 and Willis 2-46.

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In reply, England were 200-5, just 18 runs behind, when Gower’s departure for the top-score of 89 triggered another collapse from the tourists, who lost their last five wickets for 23 runs on the third morning.

England thought that they had the rough end of the stick in terms of umpiring decisions and were facing the prospect of embarrassing defeat.

That fear intensified when Sri Lanka closed day three on 152-3, a lead of 147, but they collapsed on the fourth morning to off-spinner John Emburey, who claimed 6-33 – including a spell of 5-5 – to send them packing for 175.

Sri Lanka lost their last seven wickets for eight runs in 68 balls, a calamitous passage from which they never recovered.

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Left to score 171 on a pitch now badly scarred at both ends, but against spin bowlers who failed to match the skill of their own, England eased to victory inside four days thanks to 85 from Chris Tavare and an unbeaten 42 from Gower.

Although comfortably beaten in the end, Wisden said that Sri Lanka “did enough in their first Test to show they deserved elevation to full membership of the International Cricket Conference,” which is today known as the International Cricket Council.

Later in 1982, there was trouble at t’mill when captain Warnapura received a life ban from cricket for leading a rebel Sri Lanka team to apartheid South Africa.

Wicketkeeper Mahes Goonatilleke, left-arm spinner Ajit de Silva and off-spinner Lalith Kaluperuma also threw in their lot with the rebels.

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Three members of the England XI were banned in similar circumstances – Messrs Emburey, Underwood and Gooch.

They also joined a rebel tour to South Africa and were disqualified from international cricket for three years.

It meant that the Colombo match was Underwood’s 86th and last Test appearance, ‘Deadly’ signing off with 297 wickets at an average of 25.83.

At the time, it put him second on the list of England’s leading Test match wicket-takers to Yorkshire’s Fred Trueman (307), and Underwood’s total is still the highest by an English spinner.

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