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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mr.tikko" data-source="post: 9357912" data-attributes="member: 319171">The Carrom Ball                                                 <img src="http://pradeepmathew.com/images/carromball.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /> Jack Iverson, the 1950s Aussie spinner, bent his middle finger as if he were flicking a leech off the ball. He held the ball with his elongated index and ring fingers and flicked it at the batsman, the ball spinning in whichever direction his thumb pointed. GentlemanCricketerofYesteryear, or the GenCY, team manager during Sri Lanka’s ’87 World Cup campaign, shared a photograph of Iverson’s unusual grip with Mathew. Inspired by all the idle games of carrom played with the reserves at Guwahati, Mathew attempted to incorporate a carrom flicking motion, which meant the ball could spin with no discernible change in action. It also meant that the ball’s trajectory would be torpedo-like. In theory anyway. While Jack Iverson is fondly remembered as a genuine mystery bowler by the likes of Benaud and Bradman, the GenCY failed to tell young Mathew that despite a few 6-wicket hauls in his first few outings, Iverson was soon worked out by batsmen. His fragile temperament kept him out of test cricket and led to his suicide in 1973. Mathew tried the carrom flick vs England, Pakistan and the West Indies, and while the trajectory was torpedo-like, the bounce low and the turn sharp, Mathew’s directional control was abysmal. Of the nine balls that made it to the pitch, all were adjudged wides. The other seven attempts had the ball squirting out at second slip, short leg and even mid-wicket. Salim, Gatting and Richardson helped themselves to half centuries off the rest of Mathew’s deliveries.Mathew bowled 17 wides in a 191-run defeat to the West Indies. He was warned by the umpire of turning the game into farce after the mid-wicket ball against Pakistan. And was taken out of the attack against England by the Skipper for using that “bloody carrom bullshit.”Mathew never used the carrom grip again, though Ari claims to remember him using it thrice in the ’92 World Cup. Ill-gotten ITL footage confirms these claims. Ari shows me the carrom flick darting under the bats of Richardson, Gatting and Salim. It is I who note that these three were the very same men who put Mathew to the sword at the previous World Cup. It is Ari who proffers this to be coincidence.  The Top-Spinner                                                 <img src="http://pradeepmathew.com/images/topspinner.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />                                                           Ari is a believer in this ball; I am not, or was not until 1986. The top-spinner is a ball that looks and behaves like a chinaman, but goes straight on. In other words, it is a ball that does not spin. This joke was in the Sunday Observer Junior Section. What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t come back? A stick. In short, a top-spinner is a chinaman or a googly gone wrong, or delivered inefficiently. Must this incompetence be given a name? Then Ari mentions the 1994 Lakspray Trophy between Bloomfield CC and NCC and I am forced to bow my head in deference.Mathew’s last season with Bloomfield was the season where he truly blossomed. Discarded from the national side following an indifferent patch vs India and Pakistan, he spent that year perfecting his mastery.In the Saracens game, it was evident from the press box above the sightscreen that Mathew was putting a superhuman amount of spin on each delivery. The seam glistened in the baking sun, the ball was a revolving red transparency, a fan turned on full. Mathew’s wrist flapped about like a severed limb, hurling gyrating grenade into humid air. And guess what? The ball did not turn. It hurried on, bounced awkwardly, but there was no spin.Each batsman was greeted by a thunderous chinaman or an unnaturally sharp googly. Just to remind them that there was turn in the pitch and in the elongated fingers of the bowler. And then ball after ball that looked like it was going to spin, but didn’t. Nine batsmen were bowled, caught and stumped playing for spin that never came. Ari says I owe him a drink. I remind him that he no longer drinks.  The Armball                                                 <img src="http://pradeepmathew.com/images/armball.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />Nathu speaks to Brian Gomez, whose LankaTel T-shirt, cap and tie leave little doubt as to how ITL financed his trip. “To be honest with you mate, I picked up the ole armball in your country.” Dipak looks Punjabi and speaks fluent Kiwi.“Your spinner took 10 wickets against us, eh? I was reserve. I watched that fella bowl in the nets. Beautiful armballs, eh? I can’t remember his name…”  “Jayantha Amarasinghe?” prompts Brian, confirming beyond doubt that he is an idiot. “Nah, mate.”  “Sanjeewa Weerasinghe?” “Don’t think so. Dark bloke, kinda shaggy hair.” “Ah,” smiles Brian. “Ranjith Madurusinghe.” “Nah, mate. Not him. Listen,  I think we’re expected on the field…”Brian could have gone on bumbling names. Roger Wijesuriya, Sridharan Jeganathan, Don Anurasiri, Roshan Jurangpathy. Nah mate. Brian you moron. Not them. The Lissa                                                 <img src="http://pradeepmathew.com/images/lissa.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />                                                           The Aussies claim ownership of the flipper, invented by Clarrie Grimmet in the 30s. Ari and I do not dispute this. Grimmet snapped his fingers along the ball’s axis and made it skid off the pitch, keep low and, more often than not, connect with the wicket. Mathew upped the ante by developing a ball that skidded and changed direction. He used it against tail-enders in the 1989 Australia series and picked up three wickets. Walking back after a skidding googly toppled his bails, pace bowler Merv Rackemann spat in the direction of the bowler. “You been sticking your dick into the seam, mate?” Sadly, the strain on Mathew’s fingers proved too much. The skidder or lissa as keepers in domestic cricket referred to it, was the first to be discarded after his injury woes of the early 90s. Despite the constant cries of “Lissa daapang! Lissa daapang!” by Bloomfield keeper Uvais Amalean.Australia claims credit for re-introducing the flipper to the game courtesy of a portly blonde genius. This is where Ari and I part company. Mathew dismissed Rackemann, Alderman and Lawson with googly flippers in Melbourne in 1989. Two years before a great blonde hope rose from that very city. Ari claims that it is probable that somewhere in the grounds Warne witnessed this feat and spent the next few years attempting to emulate it. That therefore it is correct to say that Pradeep Mathew indirectly revived the flipper.I reply that if three tail-enders fall in the outback and there in no one to hear them, then no sound is made. And to attempt to convince an audience 10 years later that such a sound existed is an exercise in foolishness.              The Darter                                                    <img src="http://pradeepmathew.com/images/darter.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" />                                                           A faster version of the armball, used in one-day cricket to cramp the batsman. The ball back-spins and shoots off the pitch at pace. Strangely, the ball was only employed in 1992. During the World Cup and the Australia test match. It garnered a few LBWs, notably Australian Geoff Boon, Indian Javagal Srikanth and West Indian Carl Arthurton.                      As usual, Sri Lanka lost every game.             Floater                                                 <img src="http://pradeepmathew.com/images/floater.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /> A traditional chinaman, but bowled with open chest and a shrug of the shoulders, causing the ball to linger in the air. Ari and Jonny call it the slow-motion delivery. It was the easiest of Mathew’s variations to pick; the change in delivery stride was palpable. It was as if Mathew sublimated not just the purchase on the ball but the weight of the ball itself. “It is energy extraction at its most primal,” says Ari, showing off yet again. “Mathew momentarily displaces kinetic energy and then guides it towards its trajectory.” Ari scribbles a formula on a napkin and shows it to Jonny. Jonny grabs the napkin, blows his nose on it and hands it back. “Here. Calculate the viscosity of that.” Ah, the good ole days. What I do know is, the ball stayed in the air slightly longer than appeared physically possible. South African Daryll Kirsten was repeatedly bowled by it in 1993. It resulted in a handled ball and a hit-the-ball-twice dismissal in the same test vs Zimbabwe in 1994. It was the delivery of a bowler at the zenith of his art. It could only be played if the batsman waited till the last possible micro-second. A feat only one man, Zimbabwean Anton Rose, could manage consistently.             The Speed Ball                                                 <img src="http://pradeepmathew.com/images/speedball.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /> 100 miles an hour is the holy grail for fast bowlers. The equivalent of the 4-minute mile. Jeff Thompson came close in 1976 with 99.7 mph. There is a young Pakistani tearaway, Akhtar, who I am told is faster than Thommo, but I am sceptical. Most Pakistani prodigies are washed up after two seasons.Many say that the mythical gini pace bowler from Jaffna cracked the 100 mph mark. But none of this can be verified. Reggie Ranwala even believes that Mathew may have got close to the grail. This I do not believe. “You should’ve seen in the ’93 Lakspray trophy final. If we had a speed camera, Mathew would have the record. Definitely. Definitely.”Ari and I had been to most Lakspray trophy finals, enough to know that two years after receiving first-class status, it was renamed the P. Sara trophy, and that the final Reggie refers to, where Mathew sent down thunderbolts at the SSC middle order, took place in 1994.We both remember the game well. The SSC was a virtual Sri Lankan side. Its mediocre pacemen opened our nation’s bowling and its batsmen had all received call-up for national duty. There was a Gurusinha, an Atapattu, two Gunawardenas and three Ranatungas.It was a rain-drenched, high-scoring final. Replying to Bloomfield’s 520, SSC were plodding along in the 300s, getting some batting practice. After lunch, some words were exchanged between Mathew and the SSC captain, who was crawling towards a century. In the early 90s, this was not advisable. Being on the good side of the Captain was essential. Many were afraid of taking his wicket during domestic games.Mathew didn’t seem to care. He bowled a darter, got rid of wicket-keeper Upul Fernando and made a remark to the Captain who then complained to the umpire. After this was smoothed over, Hemantha Wickremaratne joined the Captain at the crease and the pair began stone-walling.Mathew gradually increased his run-up and began bowling slow orthodox deliveries, interspersed with short flat deliveries, which gradually grew faster and more frequent. There was no discernible change in action.One broke Wickremaratne’s stump, literally in two. Two hit the Captain in the belly, three whizzed past his nose.                     “New batsman Suranjith Silva came with helmets, remember?” says Ari.Those were brisk deliveries, but none faster than 100 mph. Not the one that took out all three of Silva’s stumps. Nor the one that took the Captain’s off and leg and left the middle one standing. No one knows for sure what was said or how fast Mathew’s speed ball was. But everyone remembers the Captain’s pointed finger and his parting words to Mathew. “You will never play for Sri Lanka again.”             Double Bounce Ball                                                 <img src="http://pradeepmathew.com/images/double.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /> I saw it on two occasions. And for that I am grateful. At Asgiriya in 1987 and at Kettarama in 1991. It was undoubtedly the strangest ball ever invented. The mystery of mystery balls. A ball that bounces and changes direction twice. Gokulanath described a ball that kept low and skidded on matting wickets. Newton claimed to have seen him use it in softball cricket as early as 1985.Charith remembers facing such a ball when Mathew bowled for Bloomfield. “I managed to glance for a single, but I asked umpire, ‘Ball is dead if bounces twice?’ Fellow didn’t know.”Against New Zealand at Asgiriya 1987. Ari and I were in the pressbox, Kuga and Minister Tyronne Cooray in the VIP lounge. The Kiwis had hammered our medium pacers to an opening stand of 87. Mathew began bowling aggressively. Flat finger spinners, darters, undercutters, the occasional skidder. It was almost as if he were the fifth seamer. It certainly put the brakes on. Kiwi openers Franklin and Horne played out two maidens, nodding with respect at the accuracy and pace.And then he bowled it. Short and wide outside Franklin’s off stump, the tall batsman stepping back poised to deliver punishment. But instead of sitting up and offering itself to Franklin’s waiting blade as most short, wide balls are wont to do, this one keeps low, changes direction, pitches again, this time on leg, where it darts in to topple the batsman’s exposed leg stump.                    A 5-ounce, spherical, leather-bound object made to behave as a pebble skimming water.Reggie Ranwala says that he bowled two consecutively against Anton Rose in 1994 and that both were declared no-balls. We have footage of Mercantile Credit vs Sathosa, 1986. Premlal Fernando and Basil Goonatilaka are bowled by double bounce balls. Newton claims he helped perfect it in 1993 and that there is nothing illegal about a ball that bounces twice. Gokulanath said he knew how to bowl it, though he could not show us.Jonny remembers it against South Africa. Mathew was no-balled every time. Reggie remembers it against Manawatu in 1995. The ball bounced not twice but thrice and was called dead. The dismissal of Greg Loveridge with a double bounce ball could well have been Mathew’s last international wicket. I remember it in the Bloomfield vs SSC final 1994. Perhaps Mathew’s second greatest performance. I was with Ari and Renga. Every over Renga reminds us that the young new batsman is his nephew Arnold Russell. Short ball outside leg. Arnold pulls at thin air. Ball cuts to his off, pitches, bounces into the wicket. Renga swears.                    “I’ve never seen anything like that,” says Ari.                     “That’s the best ball I’ve ever seen,” says I.                     We turn to Renga.                     He scowls and pretends to write in his notepad.                      “I’ve seen better,” he says.</blockquote>

Verification: Haya warak paha keeyada? (haya wadi kireema paha)

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