by Mayukh Ghosh
Sri Lanka, despite winning the World Cup in 1996, has not been the subject of many cricket books.
It has been close to thirty years and yet very few life stories of cricketers emerged from the island nation.
The set text to refer has always been the writings of S.P. Foenander and his book on the history of Sri Lankan cricket was published ninety-nine years ago!
And even if one wants to read it, it is usually not easy to get hold of a copy.
Nicholas Brookes has managed to fill this glaring gap in cricket literature, at a time when no one expected it to happen. Simply because no one really thought about it.
Brookes’ love for Sri Lanka and its cricket is one of those unusual yet pleasant cricket stories Here’s what he had to say about his formative years.
“Strangely enough, my earliest memory of cricket is of not wanting to play. I remember being in my parents’ bedroom in South London – I must have been six or seven – peering out of the window onto the squally street below, crying that I didn’t want to go for practice at the club my dad had just signed me up for. He told me I’d probably enjoy it if I went, and he was right. Soon enough, I was playing imaginary Test matches in the corridor at home, trying to bowl everything in the nets – utterly obsessed with cricket.
“I’ve loved reading since I was little, and my mum says that as soon as I started watching cricket on TV, I was scribbling my own match reports. So, I guess cricket writing was always there in a funny sort of way.
“Mum’s half Jamaican, so in the early days it was all West Indies for me: I’ll never forget my first days out at the cricket, when they came to town in 2000. I was struck by the sheer joyfulness of the Caribbean crowds, and especially by the guard of honour the England team formed when Curtly came out to bat for the last time. Even at 10, I knew I was witnessing something special – a little bit of history.
“Still, Sri Lanka soon came to hold a special place in my heart – in the nineties and noughties, it was hard not to feel inspired by the potency of their cricket. To me, they seemed to carry an almost mystical, larger-than-life quality: the flat-footed brutality of Jayasuriya, the silky strokeplay of Jayawardene, the almost unfathomable contortions of Murali and Malinga.
“As I got older, my love for cricket, and for books, kept growing, although I never really considered combining the two. Cricket felt like one of those walled-off industries that I couldn’t just stumble into – it was only when I met a cricket writer at a wedding, who encouraged me to have a go myself, that I gave it real thought.”
Despite reading on the game from an early age, Brookes found a boxing book to be the most influential in making him a sports writer.
“I started reading books that showed me how powerful cricket writing could be. Beyond a Boundary and War Minus the Shooting probably have pride of place on most cricket writers’ shelves; Peter Oborne’s Basil D’Oliveira and Simon Lister’s Fire in Babylon also struck a chord with me. But, I think it was a book about boxing – A Man’s World by Don McRae – that had the biggest impact. I loved the idea of sports writing as a vehicle for telling human stories; I hope I was able to channel a little bit of that in An Island’s Eleven.
“I was inspired to write about Sri Lanka largely because of the lack of books on the island’s cricket. Every other established Test nation had a ‘history’ written about it; English, Australian and Indian cricket are blessed with masses of biographies too, but Sri Lanka had next to nothing.
“Equally, I’d wrongly thought Sri Lanka had always been part of cricket’s furniture – it was only when I dug deeper that I discovered the island was without Test cricket until 1982, and that everything that had come before was pretty patchily recorded. It was clear that lots of stories had already been lost, and that more would disappear into the ether unless someone took on the project soon.”
Few writers do what Brookes did to make this project as near-perfect as possible.
“It helped that Sri Lanka’s an easy place to fall in love with, so full of character and vibrancy. I found my first trip in 2017 totally enchanting – within six months, I’d packed my bags and moved there full-time. It was a real adventure, full of happy memories. To help cover the costs of the project, I got a job in a school teaching English. I was a terrible teacher – I couldn’t bear to shout at the kids, so they ran rings around me – but it was a great experience, which gave me an insight into the workings of Sri Lankan institutions, and hopefully taught me a bit about the island’s culture.
“At the same time, I started interviewing pretty much anyone who’d speak to me. There were a whole host of cricketers from the pre-Test era who hadn’t really been able to tell their stories; I felt very privileged to be able to shed light on some of the guys who’d laid the groundwork for Sri Lanka’s success, and maybe hadn’t received the recognition they deserve. I owe a great debt to two in particular – David Heyn and Ranjit Fernando – who spent countless hours talking cricket with me, and showed me a great deal of support. They truly became my ‘uncles’. Equally, getting a chance to chat to guys who I’d grown up idolising – Murali and Mahela spring to mind – made me feel like a kid again.”
A project like this always throws a fair bit of challenges and hindrances. This was no exception.
“Of course, there were challenges throughout the process. The lack of material on the early days often made me feel like I was hunting for needles in haystacks, but I probably struggled most with the scale of the project. You need a pretty light touch to cram 200 years of detail into a book – I don’t think that necessarily came naturally to me. It took me a long time to distinguish between vital and disposable detail: I wrote far too many words, and faced a brutal word cut in the weeks prior to publication.
“This was my first book, and I really had no idea what I was doing when I started, so there are lots of things I feel I could have done differently or better. As the project wore on, I think I felt the pressure of trying to get everything down – and pretty much chained myself to my desk. In hindsight, I wish I’d written a bit less and lived a bit more: my best days, and biggest breakthroughs, always came when I was out exploring, talking to people – not when I was pounding away at my laptop.
“Looking back, I’m proud of the book – although I wish I’d had greater scope: more time to research, more words to tell the story, the chance to conduct a few more interviews. But, the fact is, in a book like this, you have to leave a lot out – I think that felt especially difficult as there’s so little literature on Sri Lankan cricket. The subject has been regrettably overlooked: more than anything, I hope the book will encourage more cricket writers to turn their focus towards Sri Lanka.”
The book has won major awards for 2023 and, hopefully, will encourage more people to write on Sri Lankan cricket.
It is available from all usual physical and online outlets.