Rex Clementine in Port Elizabeth
Former South African captain Kepler Wessels has had a long, cordial relationship with Sri Lankans. The Bloemfontein born, posh Grey College educated and Afrikaans speaking former opener had built up warm friendships with his Sri Lankan contemporaries having toured the country on several occasions representing two different teams.
Wessels moved to Australia during years of apartheid and toured Sri Lanka in 1983 with Greg Chappell’s side and was the hero in the one off Test in Kandy as Australia triumphed by an innings. Wessels (141) and the late David Hookes (143) made big hundred as Australia piled up over 500 runs.
Cricketry – Amla becomes 10,000th LBW dismissal in Test history
Renowned Cricket Commentator, Roshan Abeysinghe brings you an exclusive audio analysis on Cricketry on day three of the first Test match between Sri Lanka and South Africa in Port Elizabeth.
Ten years later, with Nelson Mandela released from prison and South Africa’s isolation over, he toured the island again as South Africa’s captain and won many admirers for his leadership qualities as he marshaled a young and inexperienced side to a series win. Legend has it that Wessels passed a message around the slip cordon all the way back to the bowler Brett Schultz to bowl to Roshan Mahanama on leg-stump as he was shuffling across too much. The instructions were passed on in Afrikaans so that the Sri Lankans had no clue what was being said. Schultz was raw and was on his first tour. He spoke no Afrikaans and shouted back at his skipper in English saying, “If you want me to bowl on the leg-stump, I want a fine-leg.”
Even after retirement, Wessels’ friendship with Sri Lanka continued. NCC was gracious enough to give his son Riki a season of First Class cricket in 2008 to help improve his game. For a man who had such fine relationships with Sri Lanka, his comments following the first Test against South Africa at Centurion in 2011 was a bitter pill to swallow.
Sri Lanka had been thrashed by an innings inside two and half days in the opening game and Wessels, a television commentator ran down the tourists. He suggested that the Sri Lankans did not belong to the Test category and should play more with lower ranked teams like Bangladesh etc.
“If ever there was a time to make changes, now is the time. The selectors have some serious things to think about. We are playing Sri Lanka … have you seen Sri Lanka play recently? We could beat them with our SA ‘A’side,” he had remarked.
These comments fired up the tourists. There was a significant gap between the first Test at Centurion and the second at Durban. Coach Geoff Marsh, a master tactician worked tirelessly on helping his batsmen to counter the rising delivery.
Marsh was so obsessed in raising the standards for the Boxing Day Test that he even cancelled the day off on Christmas Day and instead the tourists were training.
Centuries by Kumar Sangakkara and Thilan Samaraweera and twin half-centuries on debut by Dinesh Chandimal along with good bowling performances by Chanaka Welegedara and Rangana Herath helped Sri Lanka to bounce back and square the series 1-1 with a 208 run win.
At the post match presentation, Captain Tillekeratne Dilshan hit back sarcastically.
“We actually want to thank Kepler Wessels. He gave us the motivation. We are very, very thankful to Mr. Wessels,” Dilshan said.
“We have proved that we are good. We said if we played the Sri Lankan brand of cricket, we can beat anyone. We came, we played our brand of cricket and we beat one of world’s best teams in their own soil,” Dilshan said of his first Test win as captain.
During the build up for the next game in Cape Town, there was criticism by other Sri Lankan players on Wessels’ remarks.
“Statements like that are good for our moral. It’s not something that you look at it and say that he is right. That’s something that you want to prove wrong. Comments like that are very good for a side during a tour,” Kumar Sangakkara noted.
Boxing Day game emotional for tsunami affected Dinesh Chandimal
As Sri Lanka vice-captain Dinesh Chandimal walked in to take the field in the first Test against South Africa on Boxing Day here in Port Elizabeth, he was engulfed by emotions thinking about what happened to his family 12 years ago during the 2004 tsunami.
People outside Sri Lanka too joined the debate and the most prominent remark came from former great Sunil Gavaskar.
“Nothing spurs a cricketer on as much as some critical observation by a fellow cricketer or a former cricketer. The desire to prove them wrong is a burning one and while some times it is counterproductive and leads to another failure, at other times it can work to concentrate the mind and energies and lifts skill level just enough to get the desired result,” Gavaskar noted.
