TO Andy Bull’s Insert in the ‘Spin’ Page of the UK Guardian, Some Pointers about His Unwelcome Insults To One Of Sri Lanka’s Proudest Sons!
Posted on June 24th, 2011

Top Spin By SuniFor LankaWebƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ 

June 24nd 2011
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ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ This item is a bullish affront to all aspects of decent constructive criticism in sports journalism by someone who for his own pathetic sake has been named ironicallyƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ after a bull!!ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  MrƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Andy Bull to be precise~~ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ In a chinashop perhaps! This refers to hisƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  submission “CRICKET AND THE KILLING FIELDS”ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  presented on the SPIN page of the UK Guardian where the term “killing fields “once again seems to have surfaced withƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ a coincidental connotation of British meddling into Sri Lankan affairs which the Brits including their at timesƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ ignominious BBC seem to revel in on an ongoing basis especially recently!!
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ BullƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ hasƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ used the word ‘Disgrace’ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  in his words “asƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ a tediously familiar word, rambling on about “beingƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ stripped of significance by its overuse, shorn of force by its frequent repetition. Read it again. Roll it around your tongue. Feel its heat and taste its weight, because it needs to be used with weight rather lightly “and indeed so! simplyƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ to throw back at himƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ in rebuttalƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  towards the simplistic twaddle he has chosen to write in insulting one of Sri Lanka’s proudest sons Mr Sanath Jayasuriya.
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It is of no consequence to cricket norƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ towards the breaking of any rules involving international cricket thatƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ as Bell suggests “in the next seven days England are due to play two games against Sri Lanka which will be used as valedictory matches for Sanath Jayasuriya, who has been recalled to the squad at the age of 41 ” which Bull has rather obnoxiously taken the liberty to comment about with no provocation whatsoever and continuesƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ that ” Jayasuriya’s selection is a disgrace and the idea of playing cricket against a team that includes him is a disgrace” end quote and who the bloody hell as the British would say is he to make such comments or take the liberty to do so or be so jackassedly judgemental about an issue which surely seems way beyond his comprehension?
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The disgrace probably lies in the manner he has had the affront to make such comments and in doing so probably has disgraced the entire British sports writing fraternity of which there are some fineƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  and accomplished writers who portray the meaning of the term finesse brilliantlyƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ andƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ quite unrelated to the crap he has written here! WritersƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ who do not resort to character assassination nor hit below the belt figuratively as Bell has done nor drag in a political intonation to add to his apathetic insight no better than that of a moronƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ where the man’s bell needs to be rung until the message is dinned into his thick cranium that one does not go about insulting the likes of Sanath Jayasuriya just because he has been called up to represent the country, without reprisalsƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ for those who choose to do so!ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ It needs to be emphasizes asƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ a matter which is ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ entirely the business of Sri Lanka Cricket and none other, least of all a piddly unkown minnow who considers himself a sports writer but needs apparent rehabilitation about how to write non partisan objectionableƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ tripeƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ in the global media such as what follows and in so doing has also attempted to stir up communalƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ hatreds and draw enmities within the nation of Sri Lanka as well as globally in this ludicrously feebleƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ attempt of his to write creatively albeit destructively!.
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While he seems to be trying hardƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ to get involved in a scenario which he neither has any real knowledge about nor displays the gentlemanliness and diplomacies involving sensitive issues required,ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Andy BullƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ has touched on this themeƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ with no conscience and would be well advised to apologise to both Sanath Jayasuriya as well as the Nation of Sri Lanka!! for having propagated theƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ apatheticƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ litany of aƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ garbledƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ representation of his misconceivedƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ mindsetƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ which follows as none of it should have any real implication about the farewell accorded to one of the finest batsmen of the century!! nor should it play into the hands of the adversaries of Sri Lanka,ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  her real enemies who seem to alsoƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ have had aƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ darkƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ and sneaky hand at pumping up Andy Bell as part of his rhetoric in all probabilities and certainly sounds like the continued incessant bellyaching of the Global Tamil Diaspora where Bell could well be a sympathiser or perhaps on the payroll of!
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“The Test series between Sri Lanka and England was played out to the sound of protests from London’s expatriate Tamil community. During the Saturday of the Lord’s Test they picketed the ground. Nothing epitomised the see-no-evil, hear-no-evil attitude of the cricket community so well as the fact that the protestors were hemmed in behind metal barricades on the far side of the main road, shouting their slogans at a 10-foot tall red brick wall. On the other side business at Lord’s went on as usual, with the brass bands blaring away in Harris Garden all but drowning out the distant catcalls.

Only a fool thinks that sport and politics do not mix. But I can understand the desire to try and keep the two things separate, to stick your fingers in your ears and insist that the worries of the real world should not intrude of the field of play. Sport is supposed to be escapism, after all. But Jayasuriya is not a sportsman any more, he is a politician. His selection is an intrusion of a politics into sport, and means that isolation of the two is not an option.

In April 2010 Jayasuriya was elected as the MP for Matara in southern Sri Lanka. He represents the United People’s Freedom Alliance, the party of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Jayasuriya’s recall was ordered by Rajapaksa’s government. It is an overtly political decision. Kumar Sangakkara’s recent comments on the unique difficulties of captaining Sri Lanka – “it is a job that ages you very quickly” – were a thinly veiled reference to this kind of political interference in team selection. It was a sentiment echoed by stand-in coach Stuart Law in the wake of the last Test, when he said he was learning that the job was about “more than just cricket matters”.

There is no convincing case to be made for recalling Jayasuriya. It has been two-and-a-half years since he scored a century in any kind of cricket, and the fact that he has said he will play only in the first of the five ODIs against England is testament in itself that he is not coming back because he has the interests of the team at heart.

But even if there was any cricketing logic to his inclusion, his selection would still be unacceptable. Jayasuriya is an elected representative of a government who, according to a United Nations report published this April, could be responsible for the deaths of 40,000 Tamil citizens during the final campaign of the civil war in late 2008 and early 2009.

“The number [7,721] calculated by the United Nations Country Team provides a starting point, but is likely to be too low,” the report states. “A number of credible sources have estimated that there could have been as many as 40,000 civilian deaths.”

Last Tuesday Channel 4 broadcast the documentary Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields, a film which detailed the crimes committed against the civilian Tamil population by the Sri Lankan army in excruciating detail. It used nauseating mobile phone footage shot on the ground to substantiate allegations of the systematic rape and murder of Tamils and the direct targeting of civilian hospitals and medical facilities in no-fire zones. Gordon Weiss, a former UN spokesman in Sri Lanka, reported that by May 2009 there had been “roughly 65 attacks on medical facilities that were treating civilians” and that “the no fire zone was taking significant amounts of shelling from the government and it was killing civilians.”

This is an extremely emotive issue. When I wrote about the Tamil protest at Lord’s, I was emailed by one reader demanding to know whether I had “asked the protestors for their opinion of the use of child soldiers, suicide bombings and human shields by the Tamil Tigers?” The UN report confirms that atrocities were committed by both sides on the civilian population, who were ushered into supposedly-safe ‘no fire zones’ by the army and then held there at gunpoint by the Tigers. In the words of Weiss, the army “systematically denied humanitarian aid in the form of food and medical supplies”.

In a recent interview with the BBC’s Sinhalese service, Jayasuriya explained that “the world should realise that the Sri Lankan government has stopped one of the worst terrorist organisations in the world. I am 41 years old. Thirty years of my life, we went through a terrible time in Sri Lanka. Anybody can come into my country now and walk anywhere without fear,” Jayasuriya continued. He added that the world should be “happy” at what the government had achieved.

David Cameron has called for an independent investigation into what happened in Sri Lanka, something Rajapaksa’s government, Jayasuriya’s government, has refused to allow. According to the UN report, there are “reasonable grounds to believe that the Sri Lankan security forces committed war crimes with top government and military leaders potentially responsible”.

The English players once blanched at being made to shake hands with Robert Mugabe. This Saturday they will be expected to play against a man who is a direct representative of a government accused of war crimes on a horrific scale by the United Nations. The politics of the matter is not outside the ground or behind a metal fence any more. It is right there in the middle of the pitch and it cannot be ignored”
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Mr Bell should therefore be addressed in no uncertain terms that this kind of rhetoric is dangerous and does not promote any admiration from the global audience of discerning cricket conscious readers who would invariably conclde that this is an attempt to stir up unneccessary emotions, monger interracial hatreds and all im all dabble in topics which should be the least of his concerns of he was an impartial sports journalistƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ which could have far reaching consequences mainly on himselfƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  for his lack of sensitivity and for presenting a boorish mentality, for his country as well asmany aspects of sports journalismƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ which has no place in the world of cricket nor in the world per se!
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One Response to “TO Andy Bull’s Insert in the ‘Spin’ Page of the UK Guardian, Some Pointers about His Unwelcome Insults To One Of Sri Lanka’s Proudest Sons!”

  1. Vis8 Says:

    Sad to see yet another of the once-mighty British (“journalists”) stoop this low to make a living. Andy Bull has swallowed the same bait of the Tamil terror-supporters as Mr. McCrae of Channel-4 has. The video Andy Bull$ refers to in his so-called “news-Flash” has been proved fake in many ways:

    http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2011/06/23/shavendra-nullifies-channel-4-in-new-york/

    And mister Andy decides to make sensational news, with a picture of Sanath packing his coffin.

    -Just cheap trash by a narrow-minded moron.

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