Tour of New Zealand 1982-83            Captain: Duleep Mendis

©  Test Cricket Tours

Sri Lanka’s third Test tour

(February - March 1983)

First Test-playing tour of New Zealand by Sri Lanka

     (no previous Test tour)

This was Sri Lanka's first official Test tour outside the Indian sub-continent. It was preceded in the autumn of 1982 by a relatively unsuccessful 'A' team visit to Zimbabwe, for which Warnapura, Perera, Ajit de Silva and Ranasinghe were omitted from the tour group. In response they signed up for the clandestine unofficial tour of South Africa, then excluded from international cricket by its apartheid poilicies, and Goonetillake withdrew from the official team to Zimbabwe to join the rebel players.

Subsequently, the team for New Zealand was chosen without any of the sixteen 'rebel' players who had contracted to play in South Africa. The 'Arosa' Sri Lankan touring team flew in secrecy from Colombo to Hong Kong and from there to Johannesburg. The team won its first match in South Africa but lost all the rest. The South African Cricket Union alleged that Mendis, Dias and D S de Silva would have reinforced the team but they demanded too high a payment, which they denied. Mendis and Dias said they considered joining the team originally but declined after discussions with their families and cricket officials, while Somachandra de Silva said he never knew about the rebel team until their tour had started.

Not only did the official Sri Lankan Test touring side to Australia and New Zealand miss the rebel players' experience. It also suffered badly from injuries, and shortly after arriving from the warm-up in Australia, the two key batsmen Mendis and Dias were injured and unable to play, so DS de Silva had to deputise as captain most of the time in New Zealand.

Duleep Mendis had broken a finger against Canterbury in the first match;  Roy Dias suffered a thumb injury in New Plymouth;  and de Mel injured his back muscles in the first one-day match at Dunedin also suffering an arm injury.  All three of them missed the two Test matches against New Zealand.

The tourists' playing kit was so poor that Symonds Sports of Sydney presented the team with $A42,000 worth of new equipment.

Other Sri Lankan Tours

Previous tour

To India 1982-83

Next tour

To England 1984

Next tour of New Zealand

1990-91

Members of the Test tour party (16)

Opening batsmen:   Sidath Wettimuny, Mithra Wettimuny, Susil Fernando.

Middle-order batsmen : Roy Dias, Duleep Mendis, Ranjith Madugalle, Yohan Goonesekera

Wicket-keepers  Guy de Alwis, Amal Silva.

Spin bowlers : Sridharan Jeganathan, Somachandra de Silva, Roger Wijesuriya

Fast bowlers : Ashantha de Mel, Ravi Ratnayeke, Rumesh Ratnayeke, Vinodhan John.

Average age of  team at time of first Test match

(4 March 1983) :

    26 yrs  7 month

Club representation: 

AF: Air Force Sports Club (1)

B'fd: Bloomfield (1)

CCC: Colombo (1)

Mwa:  Moratuwa (1), 

NCC: Nondescripts (5) 

SSC: Sinhalese Sports Club (7)

Key to type : 

LHB left-hand bat,

LBG leg break and googly bowler, 

OB off break,

SLA  slow left-arm bowler,

RFM right arm fast medium bowler

Test Appearances made before the tour

de Mel 5,  DS de Silva 5, Dias 5, Madugalle 5, Mendis 5, S.Wettimuny 4, Ravi Ratnayeke 3, Wijesuriya 1, de Alwis 0, Fernando 0, Goonesekera 0, Jeganathan 0, John 0, Rumesh Ratnayeke 0,  Silva 0,  M.Wettimuny 0.

Tour Officials

Selectors

 M A H Fuard (chairman),  C H Goonesekera,   L Rodrigo,  A P B Tennekoon.

Selection

Unavailable:   Presumably, Arjuna Ranatunga;  and all sixteen members of the 'Arosa' Sri Lankan team (see below).

Tour Party Announced :  January 1983.

Prasanna  Chulaka ? Jayantha? Amerasinghe was originally chosen but  Susil Fernando took his place.

Time between selection and departure from Sri Lanka

    x days

(January to depart)

Travel

Colombo  Q   Melbourne

The team flew from Colombo and arrived in Melbourne

1st match  3 Feb 1983

To New Zealand 17 February

Time spent in Australia  x days  (arrival - 17 February)

Time spent in New Zealand

x days (17 February - 20? March)

On-tour selection panel

Reinforcements

There were no reinforcements, despite Duleep Mendis breaking a finger against Canterbury in the first match in New Zealand; Roy Dias suffering a thumb injury in New Plymouth; and de Mel injuring his back muscles in the first one-day match at Dunedin and suffering an arm injury.  All three of them missed the two Test matches against New Zealand.

Fixtures/Results

† not first-class

§  one-day international

Time spent in Australia and New Zealand before First Test: 

x days

(arrival - 4 March)

Test appearances on tour

2 - de Silva, Fernando, Gunesekera, Jeganathan, John, Madugalle, Ravi Ratnayeke, Rumesh Ratnayeke, M.Wettimuny,  S.Wettimuny.

1 - de Alwis,  Silva.

0 - de Mel,  Dias,  John,  Mendis,  Wijesuriya.

Match appearances

T  Test match

o  one-day international 

x other match 

⊕ T/20 international

-   teams not announced

W won  L lost  D drawn  T  tie

N no result   A abandoned  

u unknown result  C cancelled

Highlights

•  Sidath Wettimuny (68 not out at Christchurch) was the first Sri Lankan to carry his bat through a Test innings.

•  Goonesekera took 4 catches in one innings at Wellington.

Tour Summary

F  Fixtures   W  Won   L  Lost   D Drawn   T  Tied  Canc  Cancelled  Aban  abandoned

Return to Sri Lanka

Auckland  Q   Colombo

(Last match ends at Auckland on 20 March)

Time away from Sri Lanka

    x days  

(depart SL to arrive home from NZ)

The AROSA Sri Lankans

The Arosa Sri Lankans tour of South Africa began when sixteen players left Sri Lanka in September 1982.

B deSilva, G R A deSilva,  H Devapriya,  L J Fernando,  H M Goonetilleke,  N D P Hettiaratchy,  L W Kaluperuma,  S Kaunratne,  F Oponso,  A R M Opatha,  J B N Perera,  A N Ranasinghe,  B Warnapura,  W L Withanage, J Woutersz.

H H Devapriya was team manager;  Bandula Warnapura was captain; Tony Opatha was vice-captain and part-organiser;  Arosa stands for Anthony Ralph Opatha South Africa.

A 25 year-long ban was imposed by the Sri Lankan board, subsequently lifted in early 1990.

Postscript

In July 1983 the long-running civil war began. A campaign of harassment by Sinhala-dominated interests against Tamils in the south of the island had the effect of strengthening support for the militant LTTE forces which made domestic tournament cricket in the north an impossibility.

Other Test tours in 1982-83

Australians to

©  2015

Acknowledgements

To general reading of The Times newspaper digital archive (Gale Group);  Jamaica Gleanor archive;  National Library of Australia Trove; Papers Past NZ.

From former British Newspaper Library, Colindale and online:  The Age, Melbourne Argus, Bangladesh Daily Star, Barbados Advocate, Canberra Times, Daily Telegraph, Dawn, Eastern Daily Press, The Hindu, The Independent (Dhaka), Indian Express, The Island (Lanka), Lahore Times, New Nation, New Zealand Auckland Herald, Sri Lanka Daily News, Stabroek News, Straits Times, Sydney Morning Herald, The Telegraph (Calcutta), Times of India , The Tribune Chandigarh, Trinidad Guardian, The West Australian.

cricketweb.net;  ESPN cricinfo;  cricket archive; www.cricketcountry; www.coverpoint

Magazines/periodicals including Australian Cricket, B & H West Indies Annual, The Cricketer International, Cricketer Quarterly, Indian Cricket, Indian Cricket Field Annual, Playfair Cricket Monthly, Shell Cricket Almanack of New Zealand, Wisden Cricket Monthly, Wisden Book of Test Cricket, Wisden’s Cricketers’ Almanack.

Men In White, A History of Australian Cricket (Harte), A History of Indian Cricket (Bose), A History of West Indies Cricket (Manley)

Biography and tour books (own collection and at the M.C.C. Library at Lord’s Ground)                                    © ALL CONTENTS OF THE TEST-CRICKET-TOURS.CO.UK WEBSITE ARE COPYRIGHT