![]() Why not invite the English for a game of cricket? It would be easy to organise, since several members of the club maintained close connections to MCC (in true colonial fashion, the CCC was for “Europeans” only). So when Ivo Bligh led his men to Australia in 1882 in a bid to “recover those Ashes”, the Colombo Cricket Club (CCC) sniffed an opportunity. With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, Ceylon (as it was called until 1972) emerged as the natural point of transit. It was an arduous journey that could take up to three months and required a stopover. In the days before planes, the only way to get between England and Australia was by boat. You might call it a geographical blessing. Life on the outside wasn’t easy, but Sri Lanka still had something to make most of the cricketing world envious. Until 1982 Sri Lanka were stranded on the fringes of international cricket: a small island, marooned. ![]() ![]() Nicholas Brookes on the matches that played a pivotal role in the development of cricket in Sri Lanka. ![]()
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