An Englishman in Sri Lanka (part 6)

The Second Test at the Asgiriya International Stadium was probably as compelling a cricket match as you could possibly wish to see.

It had the wonderful strokeplay of Jayawardene, Hussain, Thorpe and Sangakkara; the rearguard efforts of Croft, Gough, Vaas and Dharmasena; exciting new ball bursts from Gough and Vaas and some goalkeeper style catches from Thorpe (they were still impressive, even if the ball had already bounced).

If that were not enough, it had the nail-biting finish and one or two controversial decisions. It was totally absorbing - you were never quite sure what would happen next.

All this excitement, tension and controversy took place in the relaxed city of Kandy, Sri Lanka's spiritual and cultural capital. It felt more like a small town rather than the second biggest city in Sri Lanka as it was only a ten-minute walk from the frayed elegance of the Olde Empire Hotel, where I was staying, to the ground. The ground itself was perched among the green hills and it even gave a view of a giant seated Buddha that overlooks the city.

Once again most of the seats were taken up by the English, but large numbers of Sri Lankans packed into the standing areas to cheer the local heroes, Muralitharan and Sangakkara.

The match was also watched by a number of trainee monks who could be seen on the hillside in their distinctive saffron robes. I joined them on a number of occasions to watch the events unfold. They were only really able to watch the morning session, as their strict routine of school, alms giving and meditating interrupted the other sessions. Although they are prohibited from playing they all followed the game with a great deal of enthusiasm - Murali and Jayasuriya were their particular favourites.

The trainee monks only caught a few balls of play on Friday, as it was Full Moon Poya day, which is of particular importance to Buddhists in Sri Lanka. These Poya days are holidays and Buddhists take offerings to the temples and refrain from eating meat or drinking alcohol.

There were calls for the match not to be played on this religious day by a high ranking Buddhist prelate, who also apparently refused to allow his `temple elephants' to perform in a pageant during the match. The match was only affected by the fact that you could not by beer on the Friday and the `hot dogs' suddenly became `fish dogs'. The pageant also went on ahead with men with big whips, dancers with lots of body jewellery and a number of elephants, one of which was ridden by the slightly uncomfortable-looking Chris Cowdrey.

Much has been said about the umpiring in the first two matches. Each decision or non-decision was greeted with a fair deal of scepticism by those watching, both English and Sri Lankan. It was interesting to read in a local paper that the 57th Annual General Meeting of the Association of Cricket Umpires and Scorers - Sri Lanka is to be held on Sunday April 1st - an unfortunate coincidence.