Dhanasiri Weerasinghe[/caption]
It was sad to note that he Passed away peacefully on the 7th of July 2020 at home in Melbourne surrounded by family.
When I was in Melbourne a few years back, I was fortunate to meet my “Boyhood Hero” and ex cricket coach at Ananda College, late Dhanasiri Weerasinghe. This was through the kind courtesy of my former cricket Captain and good friend Prasanna De Silva.
Sir never refused to call a “spade a spade.” If I remember right, he even challenged Col. F.C. De Saram on cricket matters. F.C. was known as a father figure to many famous Sri Lankan ex Sri Lankan cricket stalwart.
Late Weerasinghe attended Ananda College, captaining the team in 1955 and was selected for the Sri Lanka, then named Ceylon, cricket team. He captained the All Ceylon cricket team in 1969. He was a handsome young man and leaving school, he joined the Police Force as a Sub Inspector.
He also played for the Bloomfield Cricket and Athletic Club for the Sara Trophy. He was a brilliant right-handed stroke-maker, a lightning-quick fielder at covers, and also a leg-break and Googley bowler.
It was more than 50 years since Sri Lanka arranged a full cricket tour to England. Unfortunately, The tour failed to materialise due to several reasons of which several people had different opinions.
Soon after Ceylon was admitted to the Imperial Cricket Conference (now known as the International Cricket Council or ICC) as an Associate Member in 1965, S.C. ‘Billy’ Griffith -- the then Secretary of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and Manager of the MCC team that toured Australia and made a visit to Ceylon in 1965 -- offered to host the Ceylon team for a tour of England in 1968.
However, Griffith stressed that the tour was not to be considered as an admission to Test status but a stepping-stone to that higher status, an opportunity for Ceylon to learn to play longer hours, over a greater number of days.
The MCC arranged for Ceylon to play against 12 counties, two universities, MCC, Scotland, and Ireland – a tight schedule of 15 first-class 3-day matches and some minor games during a two-month tour. If that tour had materialised that summer of 1968, Sri Lanka would have gained Test status well before 1981. It has been reported that even before it started the tour ran into some issues over some funds.