Given the recent series of sensational cricket scams and spy stories, this article may appear to be boring, but it is relevant as it narrates how in 1989, at the height of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) insurgency in Trincomalee port, Sri Lanka, a few good men from the Indian and Sri Lankan navies accidentally “invented” Twenty20 (T20) cricket, and used it to defuse a volatile situation.
On April 23, 1989, an Indian Air Force (IAF) AN-32 aircraft dropped me at the Trincomalee military airport. I took over my new assignment as Indian Navy Commander, Trincomalee. As an Indian Navy Captain (equivalent to an Army Colonel), I found myself in an unfamiliar territory and on an unfamiliar mission, but the Indian Navy has a unique method of training its officers which prepares them well to deal with any situation.
I was part of the IPKF (Indian Peace-Keeping Force) which comprised the Indian Army, the Indian Navy and the IAF. The situation was rather grim, with the IPKF fighting the LTTE, and also under attack by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP, a Sinhala grouping responsible for an uprising in 1971 and various acts of bombing. Some of whose cadre were suspected to have infiltrated the Sri Lankan military in 1989.). Indeed, the Trincomalee port was under constant threat from the LTTE and JVP activists, with bomb blasts and IEDs (improvised explosive devices) taking almost a daily toll of Indians and Sri Lankans. Added to this were the odd, sudden attacks by snipers who fired a single fatal shot and then melted into the surroundings.
Practically the entire Indian Navy detachment, including myself, went about our chores of water front and coastal patrolling, liaising, meetings etc. with loaded weapons in our hands. The overall Indian Navy presence in Trincomalee comprised a few dozen hardworking officers and sailors who, along with their Army and Air Force counterparts, did their best to keep the Indian flag flying high in very troubled waters.
Even though over 90 per cent of the Sri Lankan Navy personnel had been trained in India, and were very well disposed towards us, the tension in the air was palpable, with almost everyone moving around with loaded firearms. Our detachment was located next to the Sri Lankan naval base, and when I called on the Sri Lankan Commander East, Commodore W. Fernando, I discovered a friendly officer who had done all his training in India. I invited him for dinner. The evening was a great success and became a weekly event, with the commodore eating parathas and pooris with relish. Very soon the fame of our cooks reached the Sri Lankan Naval Headquarters in Colombo and the Sri Lankan Navy Chief sent a team of his Navy cooks to learn how to make various Indian dishes, the emphasis being on “parathas and pooris”. I recollect that our enthusiastic naval cooks trained some three teams of their Sri Lankan counterparts.
The ice was slowly breaking with the “paratha and poori” diplomacy, but then a particularly nasty IED killed a few Army troops nearby, and tensions shot up again. Nobody was sure if this incident was the handiwork of the LTTE or the JVP, or any other unknown group. At this juncture, with things going from bad to worse, I suggested to Commodore Fernando that we play a cricket match on the coming Sunday. He readily agreed and arranged for the gear and a post-match lunch.
With just three days to go for the match, I had a very difficult time trying to pick 11 players who could play a reasonable game of cricket. Finally, a team of 11 (with no substitutes available) was selected. But a short training session at the nets resulted in a couple of injuries and it was decided not to practise any more. After all, the aim was to play cricket to reduce tensions, and so it was important that 11 fit players took the field on Sunday.
The Sri Lankan Navy, with a local pool of a few 100 men, took the forthcoming match seriously, with daily net practise. As I watched the Sri Lankans practise in real earnest, I wondered if I had made a huge mistake and we were heading for a washout!
Discussions with the Sri Lankans resulted in the match timings being fixed from 9.30 am to 12.30 pm. Elementary calculations of “over rate vs time available” resulted in a decision to play a 20-over (each side) game, and thus, unknowingly, “unrecorded history” was made many years before the world thought of T20!
Security for the cricket match was very tight, given a series of blasts the day before. After a sleepless night of vigil, our team went to play a good game of cricket. I remember that as captain of our cricket team, I had driven to the ground with a loaded service pistol which I handed over to one of my subordinates just before going for the toss.
I will not dwell too much on the match. We played our hearts out but lost narrowly to a far superior team. Our gracious hosts served a fabulous lunch (which included parathas and pooris, along with some fantastic local cuisine), and good relations were firmly in place after that. Both sides could now confidently focus on the daily threat. I believe that this happy state of affairs continued till the IPKF finally withdrew from Sri Lanka.
After my return to India I learnt that Commodore Fernando had been subsequently promoted to Rear Admiral and had taken over as the Sri Lankan Navy Chief. Sadly, he was later assassinated by a motorcycle-borne suicide bomber whilst driving to office in Colombo.
Lord Wellington (who studied at Eton from 1781 to 1784) after his victory over Napoleon in 1815, reportedly said, “The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton”. Another historian records that many years later, while passing an Eton cricket game, Wellington remarked, “There grows the stuff that won Waterloo”. Obviously, Wellington was referring to qualities of “leadership and espirit de corps” which cricket inculcated in the future military leaders of that era.
Wellington’s era is long past. Cricket is no longer a gentlemen’s game. In cricket-crazy India money-spinning modern cricket has spawned a new breed of entrepreneurs. It would, of course, be ridiculous to compare the Battle of Waterloo with the rather insignificant and unrecorded Trincomalee T20 cricket match of 1989, but it’s worth recording that in those difficult times a few unknown Indians did their duty in Sri Lanka. There are countless unknown Indians who daily contribute their little bits to the economic rise and security of India. The same cannot be said of those few involved in the recent scam and of spies.

Vice-Admiral Arun Kumar Singh retired as Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Eastern Naval Command, Visakhapatnam