|
Daya Sahabandu - Born to excel as a cricketer |
|
|
|
Aug 03, 2009 at 12:00 AM |
By Maxie Kariyawasam
In Cricket like in any other sport, mere talent alone will not make you climb the stairway to success and fame. Added to this one must always have the will to succeed, a belief in oneself, constant practice and an exceptional level of physical fitness.
Daya Sahabandu had all these necessary attributes to make him a household name during his tremendous cricketing career. Right from his formative years at Royal College in 1951 Daya showed signs of being an out of the ordinary Cricketer when he played for the college 1st Eleven from 1958 to 1960 to capture the college bowling prize for three consecutive years along with the college colours. Some of his achievements which set the trend for greater deeds later on were his 4 for 14 against St. Peter's a match bag of 8 for 106 against Nalanda, 5 for 16 against Zahira, 5 for 49 against Trinity and his match bags of 10 for 39 against Wesley College and 10 for 52 against Nalanda in his final year in 1960.
In 1961 he joined Walker Sons & Co Ltd where he represented them in the Mercantile A Division tournament under C.I. Gunasekera, the former National Cricket Captain. In 1963 Daya switched over to the Colombo Municipal Council and represented Nomads C.C for 18 long years in the premier league tournament the P. Sara Trophy. In fact Daya has the distinction of playing 19 and a half season in the P Sara Trophy tournament where he went on to stamp his class as a record breaking bowler who bowled 6,552.1 overs, 1919 Maidens, conceeded 14,789 runs and captured a mind boggling 1048 wickets at a superb average of 14.11 per wicket.
All this would not have been possible had he not come under the influence of Stanley Jayasinghe and D.H. De Silva both former greats who advised Daya to try his hand at spin bowling, which he did and the rest is cricketing history. Such outstanding talent could not go unrecognized and Daya in 1969 found himself, picked for the Board of Control XI against Madras C.A. where he more than justified his selection with a haul of 5 for 54 and 6 for 83 to signal to the cricketing world that a Mega star was in their midst. His match winning performance in this match saw him called up to the National team to play the M.C.C led by Collin Cowdrey in 1969, the Australians led by Bill Lawrey in 1970 and the Englishmen led by Tony Lewis and Mike Derness respectively. Daya also played unofficial Test Matches against India where he showed tremendous resolve as a batsman in one of the tests being at the centre for 4 ½ hours against the likes of Bedi, Prassanna and Chandrasekera to score a almost match saving 32 not out coming in as 'Night Watchman'.
Daya a soft spoken and modest sportsman is one who never sought the limelight and preferred to always take a backseat dispite his colossal achievements. In fact Daya Sahabandu has been to Club Cricket what Muttiah Muralidaran has been to Test and one day Internationals. It is rather a pity that Daya was born in the wrong era and could not play Test or one day Internationals. If he had done so who knows, maybe, that he would have gone on to be another record breaking bowler like Shane Warne or Muttiah Muralidaran.
www.dailymirror.lk |
