Paradise regained

If he plays a few more Tests, Mahela Jayawardene will supplant Rahul Dravid as the most prolific Test match fielder in history.  Lots of articles will be written about the (often) ignored Sri Lankan batting legend.  Many more have already been written about Kumar Sangakkara, who melds his lawyerly background with an outspokenness that is loved by writers everywhere.  Sangakkara, with his faux British-Lankan accent captures the popular press while the man who has made more runs, scored more centuries, and made the highest-ever score by a right-hander in Tests is content to cede the spotlight.

However, for all the press that the more prominent cricketers of our time (the Pietersens, the Tendulkars, the Kohlis) get, I doubt any of them will be the feature of a tribute as wonderful as this one by Wright Thompson, of ESPN.

This happened a few years back, a month after finishing a crushing second in the 2007 World Cup. It was during the war, when checkpoints regularly stopped traffic on the highways. Java and Mahela, the team captain, rode back late at night from a friend's funeral. Java drove. It was dark and empty on the garrison road. The troops stopped them. It was dark, the soldiers focused and on edge, the cricket star was out of context. Java was exhausted and needed to get home. "Tell him who you are," Java begged. "I won't," Mahela said. 

Java laughs now in the hotel lobby. "This guy asked for the ID," he says, "so he gave him the ID. The ID doesn't say 'Mahela Jayawardene,' it says 'Denagamage Proboth Mahela de Silva Jayawardene.' Even if you read it, it doesn't click, unless you look for it, you know?" 

They waited on the soldiers to finish searching their car and then drove on to town. Java was annoyed and wanted to know why Mahela wouldn't do something so simple that would speed up their day. "I may play cricket," he said, "but let them do their job."