That’s not cricket…

Letter to the Editor

When a cricket commentator called T.M. Dilshan’s scoop stroke ‘The Dil Scoop,’ that made me immensely proud. Not merely because I am a cricket-loving Sri Lankan, but because that was a statement of one of our own innovating a stroke and getting due recognition for it on international media.

It was much like with Murali and what is now called the Murali special ‘Dooshra’. After a while cricket talk show hosts began to discuss ‘The Dil Scoop’ with excitement and there were several instances when the scoop was shown over and over again and was becoming a special brand of a stroke and the innovator was being acknowledged.

Just last week, I was so disappointed to watch an attempt made to scoop out a reversal of the acknowledgement of Dilshan’s superb achievement. Done through a television advertisement for a well-known global brand of a fizzy drink (shown on the official channel ‘Star Cricket’ during commentaries), it was indeed a crafty work of creativity in social engineering.

The creators of the advert had ‘bought’ Dilshan to even appear for the advert. He was not featured playing ‘The Dil Scoop,’ but was inside an Indian sari shop, amidst a posse of beauties trying out saris.

Each of them played with their saris with an action similar to that of Dilshan’s scoop stroke, with the longer drape of the sari that hangs over the shoulder, called the ‘Pallu’. And the final frame of the advert featured the product, its tagline with a bold and prominent statement: ‘Pallu Scoop’. I also wondered what a Sari Pallu (a noun, not an action verb) had to do with a superbly played cricket stroke.   

To me what it looked like was an attempt to take away what was Dilshan’s due. True, the stroke will now be played by many. Perhaps others played it somewhere, sometime before Dilshan did. There is ‘nothing that is original’ in this world of ours, as someone said. But it was Dilshan’s superb execution of that stroke during several tournaments with consistent quality that got him due brand recognition of ‘The Dil Scoop’.

My earnest appeal to those who may seek to take it away from him is: Please do not. Not even for the fat bucks you may pay an unsuspecting yet greedy human being. It will be taking away the simple and innocent joy of cricket lovers the likes of me, who cheer the excellence of achievements made not only by Dilshan, Murali,  Aravinda, Sanath or Sanga, but by Tendulkar, Sewag, Dhoni, Kapil Dev, Gavaskar, Imran Khan, Afridi, Warne, Dale, Sobers, Richards, Bradman and the like.

Maybe the ICC as the protector of the interest of cricket, its players and spectators needs to also have a look at my plea.  What can I say, but ‘such is not cricket’ and it must be called a ‘no ball’.

Renton de Alwis

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