Interviewed by Revatha S. Silva

[caption id="attachment_125623" align="alignleft" width="616"] Arjuna bats in Sri Lanka's inaugural Test in 1982 at P. Sara against England as an 18-year-old schoolboy[/caption]

There had been 12 cricket World Cups and six world champions during the past 45 years. Yet there was no other world champion who was bolstered in their course by one single individual, like the way Arjuna Ranatunga did for Sri Lanka to win the World Cup in 1996. The “96” is almost synonymous with “Arjuna”. Even the worst of his detractors would not deny this fact.

Not even Kapil or Imran, or Allan Border or Steve Waugh, or even Ricky Ponting for that matter, was so influential like Ranatunga was, for their respective countries to get the ultimate prize in world cricket. Perhaps, only Clive Lloyd of the West Indies during the 1970s would come closer to Arjuna's endeavour in this aspect.

Ranatunga started from scratch, so to say, joining the national ranks as a schoolboy in 1982. There was great cricketing tradition in the island, yet a Word Cup was only a mere dream. He became Sri Lanka Captain in 1988. The team that won the 1996 World Cup was eventually one that was harnessed and nurtured under Arjuna’s close watch.

Here is the visionary, mentor, as well as the chief orchestrator –and for some the Messiah— talking about the beginning of a journey and how the seminal mental seeds were sown in the Lankans’ mind that, "you too are big enough to win a World Cup". This sole attitude led a miniscule former British colony in the Indian Ocean to scale the toughest mountain in world cricket in just 15 years after gaining Test status.

Facing the likes of Botham, Willis, and Underwood as a schoolboy in 1982:

Our school cricket was very strong then. There were about eight Under-19 players in our squad for the inaugural Test in 1982. Those players were identified as potential national players when they were still playing for their schools. Such a thing can hardly happen now. I didn’t have any pressure in that Test. No one would have worried whether I got out for naught or got a fifty. They were just watching what was going to happen to this poor boy.

But my school Coach at Ananda, Lionel Mendis sir, told me one thing before the match. He told me that whatever those big names are (Ian Botham, Bob Willis, Derek Underwood, John Emburey), they can bowl you only one ball at a time. There is only one ball that will be passing your body at one time and you know how to hit that ball. He asked me to play ball by ball. He asked me not to play a Test match. This is a Coach who has not played even first-class cricket. But those were the only words I followed in the first Test (in 1982).

Bob Willis was coming at me almost from the far off boundary line and what I thought to myself was: “Only one ball is coming, one ball is coming and just hit that; watch that ball and hit that”. It actually ended up as a very simple thing. After facing the first over in the middle in that Test (Arjuna made a fifty in the first innings, which became Sri Lanka's first Test fifty), I understood that those Englishmen are as same as the type of bowlers whom I’d faced at the club matches. Perhaps at the school level.

And I thought someone like Kamal Dharmasiri, who played at the schools then, was far better than John Emburey. Both Emburey or Underwood could not even come closer to either Ajith (de Silva) ayya (elder brother) or Lalith (Kaluperuma) ayya that time. The two Lankans were very hard to play against. They (both de Silva and Kaluperuma too played in that inaugural Test in 1982) spun the ball much sharper than the two Englishmen. That was how I saw that situation.

How a different, strong mentality was grown

The reason for that was our school structure and the teaching and upbringing of my parents and my school Ananda. The gap between the school and club level in our country and the international level that time were very limited. Now that gap has been allowed to be opened wider only due to poor administration. Other countries have minimised that gap, whereas we have widened it. In the schools those days, what we had was not only cricket coaching. They taught us how to eat, walk, and everything. Nowadays coaches tend to coach only for money. We had the fortune of having teachers such as P.W. Perera sir and Anuruddha Polonowita sir. We played for Ananda under their guidance. I went to play for SSC when I was 14. Actually I was wearing shorts when I was playing for Under-15 then. I had to get two new trousers when I joined the SSC. At SSC then, there was Anura Tennekoon, Sunil Wettimuny, and Neil Chanmugam et al.

The experience at SSC as a schoolboy

At SSC, first I was only allowed to bat for about ten minutes at the nets, that too around six p.m. after their regular practices or matches. In fact I first went only to pick the balls when Duleep (Mendis) and Roy (Dias) were batting. That was a fortune that I had, those experiences. After playing the school matches every Friday and Saturday, I went to the SSC on the Sundays with my elder brother Dhammika coming by train all the way from Gampaha (about 35 kms northeast of Colombo). That is most of the time only to field as the twelfth man. I learnt a lot by listening to the seniors inside the SSC dressing room then. They were talking only in English. I didn’t understand even 90% of what they talked in English. It was the late Michael de Zoysa and Sunil Wettimuny who took me to the SSC. Two old Anandians, Ranjith Pandithage and Pandu Liyanage, looked after me at the SSC club. They used to drop us at the Fort Railway Station after practices every Sunday. I remember, they were the gentlemen who paid our club membership fees until I was about 26 years of age. They never allowed us to go near the club bar or restaurant. They sent us a soft drink to the dressing room, instead. It was a very difficult yet a beautiful journey. Nowadays, people seek luxuries pretty quickly. Yet we also see the repercussions of such quick luxuries.

Hero-worshipping “big names”

Those days we went to matches only to avoid defeat. We didn’t go there to win. On the other hand, some of our players used to almost hero-worship opposition players like Imran, Kapil Dev, Gavaskar, or Hadlee. There was such a inferior mentality. But for me, nobody was big. I thought, if we also do well, we too can become "big names" like them. In the middle, if they sledged or blamed me when I was batting, I would have sledged them no matter how big they were, as they came into the middle to bat. It could be Lillie or Miandad or anyone. Once I remember in the 1983 Australian series in Sri Lanka, Dennis Lillie tired to take me on. I counterattacked. He was a very big man and a very big name. A lethal fast bowler too. Only a few would have dared taking him on in the middle those days. But I won one ODI match for the country in the series by scoring a fifty in about 35 balls (He scored 59 n.o. in 39 balls guiding SL to win at P. Sara in the second ODI. SL went on to win the four-match series 2-0). We had to chase about eight runs an over in that match. I never cared who balled at me, whether it was Lillie or (Rodney) Hogg. After that series, Greig Chappell, who was their Captain, had told his brother Ian (who was also former Australia Captain) after returning to Australia that he saw a chubby schoolboy there named Arjuna Ranatunga and that boy is going to change Sri Lanka’s cricket one day.

Bandula Warnapura had that same attitude. He also used to protect us a lot. If I sat in their table at any occasion, he used to tell me “podi eka (small one), go to the next table.” That was exactly what I emulated when I became the Captain. I sometimes think that I was too harsh with regard to disciplining the youngsters. I remember when we played for the country, both Duleep and Roy used to treat both myself Aravinda like their own younger brothers. They protected us from all problems that came our way. That was exactly the way that we followed when we were the seniors in the team. In the end, I saw those traditions sadly vanishing. We passed on those tradition to both Sanath and Marvan and they passed it on to both Mahela and Sangakkara. I feel both Mahela and Sangakkara did not work themselves to pass that tradition on to a proper one in the generation after them. I’m not accusing them. Sometimes, some players could prefer playing for their personal records. Some would instead want to win for your country.

On Sathasivams, Jayasinghes and Dissanayakes

When we went to the 1983 World Cup in England (which was Arjuna's first World Cup), Sir Gary Sobers was with us as the Coach. It was a great thing that Mr. Gamini Dissanayake (the then Board President) did to get down Sir Sobers to mentor us. He was regarded like a king in England. Those days we had a very good team but we didn’t have any recognition in the cricket world. Yet when we moved about with Sir Sobers, we too gained part of the respect and honour that he received from the outside world, especially in England. He used to always protect us and give us confidence. Mr. Dissanayake also brought us a person named Rudy Webster to instruct us on our psychological aspects. That was the foundation which helped us win a World Cup years later.

Earlier, there was Sathasivam, F.C. de Saram, P.I. Peiris, C.H. Gunasekera, and Stanley Jayasinghe and all. They played without any financial gain. Then we had Michael Tissera and Anura Tennekoon. Then Bandula, Duleep, and Roy. Then a little bit of money started coming in. Yet there was only Rs. 250 per day that was paid in the first Test (in 1982). Only Rs. 1,000 for the full match because it ended in only four days. Then there was very respectable people like Raja Mahendran, who was invited by Mr. Dissanayake to teach us on discipline. There were thorough gentlemen such as Nisal Senaratne and Neil Perera who were involved in the Board administration those days. They didn’t get any financial benefit but worked tirelessly. Now people come to the Cricket Board because of their greed. Some are using about ten cars there. They are rogues. Mr. Ana Punchihewa once told me that there was only three lacks of rupees in the Board when he took over as President in 1994. There were only five, six employees at the Board then. But now, there are about 20 female secretaries alone at the Board, who could make a cricket team themselves.

[caption id="attachment_125653" align="alignleft" width="623"] SL's 1996 win is considered one of the best "underdog stories in world sport ever". Tony Greig said it was a fairytale in international cricket[/caption]

Getting ready to his next move in politics:

When the Pakistan PM Imran Khan visited here recently, he gave me a good advice. In fact he had given me the same advice 12 years ago too. He asked me to start a new political party here, like he did in Pakistan. I’m seriously contemplating on that these days. What I can say at the moment is that there is a possibility for such a thing to happen. I’m currently having discussions with certain individuals and groups over it. Why I came to politics on President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s invitation in 2000 is to do some service to the country. That was after 19 years of playing for Sri Lanka. I played all those years with the blessings of the people and I owed them to do something. Other than that, I didn’t have any major ambition to become the leader of state or anything like that. I was one of the names proposed to be the common candidate (in 2014) along with Maithripala Sirisena when Ven. Maduluwawe Sobitha thero was trying to form a new alliance to contest President Mahinda Rajapaksa. But such leadership was not my main concern.

Can Namal Rajapaksa stop current slide in SL cricket?

He is a top sportsman himself and in the mean time, he has no obstacle coming from the political hierarchy, as the Sports Minister. His father is the Prime Minister and his uncle is the President of the country. But Namal talks about democracy in the same way as all his predecessors had talked about it. I don’t know whether such views could go well with our cricket in the future.

His present practice only indicates that he seems to be afraid of taking decisions. I always value and love his father because he always took bold decisions on his own and always stood by them, whether they were proved right or wrong. That’s a trait of a good leadership. If our cricket continues to fail like this, that will reflect very badly on Namal and his future political ambitions as well. He and I have been very close to each other for a long time. But if you try to swim with the tide, not against it, you might end up as a failure. That kind of destiny might befall Namal unfortunately. Still there is time to save our cricket but if the same set of people is to run the game for the next two years too, it will definitely be the end of it. Now we have to play qualifying rounds before the T20 World Cup (this year). And we may have to play qualifying rounds for the main World Cup as well (in 2023 in India). Then all the blame will eventually come on Namal as he is the Sports Minister.

Talking about future political plans, I can only say that I had been with the masses for forty years out of the 57 years of my life. My happiness has always been to do some service to those people. Presently, we are seeing what this Govt. is capable of doing. I don’t see it goes well with the ones who voted them into power. What I can say now is that in a few months, I will move forward with the decisions that we have taken as a group politically. We’ll let the people know about it once we are ready to make our first step.