No one is bigger than the game, Charith

No other cricketing nation has been battered by terrorism quite like Sri Lanka.

- BY REX CLEMENTINE

The civil war erupted barely two years after we gained Test status and an armed insurrection simmered in the south. Killings were rampant, a President, Ministers, military commanders and activists were all consumed by the violence.

Curfew was as routine as a morning roll call and schoolchildren travelling by bus or train were drilled to watch out for suspicious parcels.

We grew up in a country where doubt lurked around every corner. That is why it is galling that the ambassadors now representing our flag seem to have forgotten where they come from. They are behaving as though they hail from the Swiss Alps, not Richmond Hill. A reality check is long overdue.

Credit to Sri Lanka Cricket for putting their foot down and reminding the players in no uncertain terms that no one is bigger than the game. Led by captain Charith Asalanka, several senior cricketers, most of them his old Richmond College mates, wanted to pull the plug on the Pakistan tour and dash home after a bombing in Islamabad. The team was in Rawalpindi by the way.

Someone should have reminded them that Martin Crowe carried on with a tour when Navy Commander Clancy Fernando was assassinated right outside the Taj Samudra, the New Zealand team hotel.