Senaka Weeraratna

Thank you Michael for this invitation to write about  ‘  Your Sobers story’

Yes, I met him i.e.,Sir Garfield Sobers, in a face to face chance encounter in Melbourne sometime in 1983.

I was then working as a Legal Officer for the office of the Federal Special Prosecutor headed by Mr. Robert Redlich, QC ( who later became a Supreme Court Judge in Victoria).

This Office was established by the Malcolm Fraser Govt. to review the findings of the Costigan Commission on White Collar Crime and mount prosecutions. I was a member of that team recruited by Robert Redlich, QC.

The office of the Special Prosecutor was located on the 22nd and 23rd floors of A.C.I. House, 200 Queen Street, Melbourne. Our work stemmed from two Royal Commissions, namely, into the Activities of the Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union, headed by Mr F. X. Costigan, Q.C., and into the Niigan Hand Group (formerly
the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Drug Trafficking) headed by the Hon. Mr Justice Stewart. Matters were referred from both Royal Commissions for investigation and prosecution, that is, in pre-brief form.

While I was working at the Federal Special Prosecutor’s Office Sir Garfield Sobers had an Office on the same floor on the other side of the corridor. He was recruited by the Govt. of Australia to help devise Multicultural policies ( a new concept then in 1983). When I got to know from my Australian lawyer friends that Sobers was working in a room next door I did not want to miss the chance to visit and talk to him.

Sobers welcomed me and said that he was glad to know that I was from Sri Lanka. He added that he had been commissioned by Minister Hon. Gamini Dissanayake ( then President of Board of Control of Cricket in Sri Lanka) to help develop Cricket in Sri Lanka. He said that Sri Lanka had high potential to grow but needs a lot more training, resources and assistance. He specifically mentioned Duleep Mendis as a good batsman with great potential. He was committed to help Sri Lanka whom he saw as a country playing attacking cricket like the West Indies. Within 13 years of my meeting Sobers in Melbourne in 1983 Sri Lanka won the World Cup in 1996.

In the same year in 1983 I met Aravinda de Silva and his under 19 School boy cricket team from Sri Lanka at the MCG and the Ceylon Tea Centre at Collins Street, Melbourne. It was Aravinda de Silva who showed me Steve Waugh who had scored a century for Australia in this match, at the premises of the Ceylon Tea Centre. I also met the Sri Lanka Cricket Team at the Springvale Club in Melbourne in December 1995 headed by Ana Punchihewa. But that is another story.

I also saw Sobers being clean bowled by Sonny Yatawara for 58 runs in the match played at the Colombo Oval in February 1961, and again in 1967 when the West Indies visited Sri Lanka to play a four day match.

Nostalgic memories of cricket are therapeutic.

Senaka Weeraratna