Spirit of Sri Lanka’s Cricket

I would like to talk about the Spirit of Sri Lanka’s cricket.
The History of Sri Lanka
Ladies and Gentleman, the history of my country extends over 2500 years.

A beautiful island situated in an advantageously strategic position in the Indian Ocean has
long attracted the attentions of the world at times to both our disadvantage and at times to our
advantage.
Sri Lanka is land rich in natural beauty and resources augmented by a wonderfully resilient
and vibrant and hospitable people whose attitude to life has been shaped by volatile politics
both internal and from without.
In our history you will find periods of glorious peace and prosperity and times of great strife,
war and violence. Sri Lankans have been hardened by experience and have shown themselves
to be a resilient and proud society celebrating at all times our zest for life and living.
Sri Lankans are a close knit community. The strength of the family unit reflects the spirit of
our communities. We are an inquisitive and fun-loving people, smiling defiantly in the face
of hardship and raucously celebrating times of prosperity.
Living not for tomorrow, but for today and savouring every breath of our daily existence. We
are fiercely proud of our heritage and culture; the ordinary Sri Lankan standing tall and
secure in that knowledge.
Over four hundred years of colonization by the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British has
failed to crush or temper our indomitable spirit. And yet in this context the influence upon
our recent history and society by the introduced sport of cricket is surprising and noteworthy.
Sri Lankans for centuries have fiercely resisted the Westernisation of our society, at times
summarily dismissing western tradition and influence as evil and detrimental.
Yet cricket, somehow, managed to slip through the crack in our anti-Western defences and
has now become the most precious heirloom of our British Colonial inheritance.
Maybe it is a result of our simple sense of...