October 04 Friday 2002
Jailbirds swell crowd at Colombo Test

COLOMBO: Test cricket doesn't pull huge crowds in Sri Lanka, but a day at the cricket still beats a day in jail. Just ask few dozen inmates of Welikada Prison, who were given bright yellow t-shirts and drafted in to help move the sight screens at Colombo Oval. After predictions there would be a sparse crowd at the neutral Test between Australia and Pakistan, there were actually a fair few gathered in the shady recesses of the Sathi Coomaraswamy Stand at Colombo Oval on Thursday. 

The prisoners, wearing the yellow t-shirts provided by sponsor Janashakti (it means 'power to humanity'), were here as helpers, some manning the sight screens but most just sitting around and enjoying a day out. 

Tony Price Todd - "I was born in Scotland," he explained - said he was having a "four month holiday" for what sounds like drunk and disorderly behaviour. 

Today, he was sitting on his canvas mat near a fire truck on a piece of ground which used to be a grassy bank but which has been levelled for a new grandstand at Sri Lanka's oldest ground. Perhaps for the cameras, the skinny little horses which usually graced this famous ground, had been removed for the match. They were here the other day when Australia trained but now only their droppings remain and Tony Price Todd and his fellow inmates had to be careful where they sat. 

It's a far cry from the day Don Bradman batted here in 1948. Bradman played at this ground when his Invincibles side stopped in Ceylon en route to London for the Ashes tour. 

A one-day match was arranged against a Ceylon XI and 20,000 turned out to see the Don. Bradman, in an act designed to please the locals, came out to bat wearing a pith helmet - the customary colonial headware in tropical climates. 

The game's greatest player made only 20 in a match which was eventually rained out. And 20 was an appropriate score on a pitch only 20 yards long. 

Bradman, after making his ground to avoid being run-out, commented that the pitch was too short because he was certain he shouldn't have made his crease. 

The pitch was remeasured after the game and found to be two yards short. Pakistan would probably wish it was a tad short today after Australia went to lunch at 1-138 with Ricky Ponting and Justin Langer seeming to have plenty of time to play their shots in a dynamic opening session.