Alston Mahadevan does it again with another cricket masterpiece

The table of contents of what the book contains  

Alston Mahadevan, a Sri Lankan domiciled in Australia has come up with another masterpiece by tracing the history of Sri Lanka cricket in the pre-Test era with a book titled ‘The History of Sri Lankan International Cricket 1882-1982’. The book covers all international matches from the first match played against England in 1882 to the inaugural Test match in 1982.

A unique feature of this 270-page hardback publication is that match reports, scorecards, and photos from all the matches played during this period are included in the book to provide a comprehensive record of the matches played during the pre-Test era.

What Alston has produced fills a big void in Sri Lanka’s cricket history in the pre-Test era, where one had to rely solely on newspaper reports and scorecards for international matches played as it was not readily available unlike in today’s digital world, where at the press of a button you have all the match reports, scorecards and records at your beck and call.

It is an area where there was a crying need to fulfil a big void and Alston has plugged that gaping hole with this wonderful publication, which to the connoisseur is a gold mine of information to savour.

This publication coming three years after his first attempt at documenting Sri Lanka’s road to Test status, a 120-minute DVD titled ‘Sri Lanka’s journey to Test status’ produced in 2017, is a must for every library and cricket aficionado.

Unfortunately the book is not for sale to the public because only a limited edition of 100 copies have been printed, and will be distributed to cricketers (or to a family member) who assisted Alston in the production and the launch of his first documentary.

Alston, a fully qualified member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants (Sri Lanka), Chartered Management Accountants (UK) and CPA Australia (Certified Practising Accountants) is at present living in Sydney and working for the Ministry of Health as a Management Accountant for nearly 24 years. He was formerly employed at Ernst & Young (Colombo) from 1977 to 1982 and also worked at PwC in Lusaka, Zambia and Alcan Aluminium in Auckland, New Zealand before migrating to Australia in 1993. (ST)