Pulse Magazine Issue 007

Russel Arnold

found the gaps and got the runs

He makes it interesting even for those who really don’t know the subtleties of wickets. Wickets are in that rectangular piece of turf in the middle of a cricket ground. Russel Arnold brings it alive for all of us, or rather tells us about the life there is on a particular wicket and sometimes declares that it is dead.

That’s Russel Arnold the commentator, long retired from competitive cricket. Those who are old enough would know of his exploits as a batting allrounder but in the case of those who are young, already handicapped by having to digest enormous amounts of information about a wide range of subjects, those old stories even if remembered can easily be forgotten.

Russel Premakumaran Arnold was born and bred in Colombo. He is the youngest in a family of four and has two brothers and a sister. His father died when he was just a few months old, but Russel recounts that his mother, an accountant, never made them feel in want. He didn’t complain and neither did his siblings.

Cricket had always been part of his life. Living close to Frazer Park in Dehiwala, Russel, like all boys his age, spent a lot of time playing softball cricket. ‘There were around ten matches being played at the same time. We played cricket all day,’ he remembers. Graduation to hard ball cricket had to happen in school. That was St Peter’s College, Bambalapitiya. Like other cricket-crazy kids, he turned up for practices. He would make the ‘A’ team in every age group he played in, always as an opening batsman.

Growing up was all about cricket for young Russel. ‘We played. We looked up to the greats of the time. For me, Roy Dias, Allan Border, and Dean Jones were special. I watched Rumesh Ratnayake bowl. We had to pay 2 rupees to go to the upstairs of the pavilion. We cut class to watch our skipper Ranmore Martinez play and of course watch his deputy Rohan Paulpillai bat’.

At school he had come under the watchful eye of Brian Seneviratne. ‘He took care of us, as did Mr Duckworth, Darrel Wimalaratne and Dilip Somaratne at various points of my time at St Peter’s.’

‘I performed well and consistently in junior cricket. When I played in the Under 15 team I scored back to back hundreds. We had a good team although we never won the championship, usually falling short in the semis.’ When he moved to the Under 17 category, he found it hard to compete with older kids because he was small. ‘My friends played First XI when they were under 15, but I could not until I had finished the Under 17 season. I shot up only after the OLs. And so Russel graduated into the First XI. ‘I was

in and out in my first year and cemented my place only towards the latter half of the season, being picked for the last seven matches in 1990/91.

‘I played the entire 1991/92 season. I was the Vice Captain that year. I scored almost 1,500 runs which included five centuries against St Thomas’ Mt Lavinia, St Benedict’s, St Sebastian’s, Prince of Wales and Wesley. I was adjudged the Best Bastman that year and was runner up at the Observer Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year awards.’

Interestingly, their arch rivals, St Joseph’s, also had a star, a cricketer who would later be Russel’s team mate in the national team: Chaminda Vaas. ‘That Big Match was dubbed “Vaas vs Arnold”. I didn’t score much in the Battle of the Saints, but Vaas didn’t get me out either.’

In August 1992 Russel got picked for the Under 19 tour of England. This was after his first full season in the First XI. This meant he would have to skip his Advanced Level examination. Russel insists that he was good with numbers and that back then he didn’t have any regrets about his academic work suffering on account of cricket: ‘we were young then, cricket was going nice…but now I feel I should have thought about my studies more.’

Russel made plenty of fifties and although he didn’t score any centuries, he got enough runs to be adjudged Man of the Series. He also received the bonus of being picked for the Sri Lanka ‘A’ team tour of Bangladesh. ‘That meant more experience. I got to be with seniors,’ he recalled.

Although he missed many games that school cricket season, Russel still scored around 1000 runs. He was the captain that year and scored 76 in the Big Match. St Peter’s beat St Joseph’s in the 50-over encounter that year and also won the Premadasa Trophy. He mentioned Mario Villavarayan, Hemal Wimalasekera, Indunil Anthony, and Asanga Perera among ‘the greats’ he played with at school.

He got plenty of job offers after leaving school, but Russel ended up working for Hatton National Bank (HNB). ‘They were very supportive of my cricket. My colleagues, especially, extended their support by covering up for me when I had to go for practices. I represented HNB in the Mercantile A Division until I retired from cricket. We won the title almost every year. We had a good team which included

the likes of Kumar Dharmasena, Avishka Gunawardena, Pramodya Wickramasinghe, and Saman Jayantha.’

He also played for the Nondescripts Cricket Club and had a few good seasons with them. He recalled that the Sri Lanka team was very strong at the time and that it was difficult to get into the team. The opening came in 1997 in a practice game against Pakistan. ‘Actually Chaminda Mendis was to open the batting, but he was injured. So I got the opportunity. I scored 140 in that match.’

Again, fortuitously, that evening during practices Roshan Mahanama had got injured. The Test was just two days away. ‘Things happened very fast. It was all unexpected. Different. I was nervy. All of a sudden you realize that you are playing with guys you’ve been looking up to. But then you realize that it’s time to compete and see if you are as good as them. I scored a couple of twenties in the first test and a half century at the SSC in the second. Then I had to sit out. I was essentially the extra batsman. I got at least one innings on every tour and I scored a century on each occasion.’

After the 1999 World Cup, the selectors decided to blood youngsters. This meant that Russel would get more regular opportunities. ‘I grew up and debuted as an opener, but of the 44 tests I played I only opened in nine. The three centuries I scored were all as an opener. I averaged 50 plus as an opener. I was probably not the most technically correct batsman, say, like Marvan [Atapattu], but I felt that trying to live up to that correctness was a burden. To my mind it was all about “runs”. I knew how to get runs. If I go back, I would do just that…score runs the way I knew.’

Russel was moved down the batting order in the ODIs on account of his temperament, ability to read situations, handle pressure and get the best out of the tail. ‘Tests are a different ball game. The game was evolving. Players were hitting more fours and sixers. As for me, I focused on hitting the gaps and getting runs. Coaches, for example, would have theories about boundaries per balls. Again, as I said, it’s about runs, whether they come in singles or boundaries.

The record shows that Russel Arnold scored 1821 runs in 44 Tests at an average of 28.01. He scored three centuries and ten fifties. In 180 ODIs he scored 3950 runs at an average of 35.26. This included one ton and 28 half centuries. He was regularly called up to bowl in ODIs and took 40 wickets at a decent