"Googly!" © Getty Images

A genial bodyguard waits outside the room. Inside, by a window through which the Indian Ocean glistens in the night light, Arjuna Ranatunga holds court. Clad in a lungi and a shirt, he rolls out one good story after another till late into the night - almost 2 a.m. at last count.

As you would expect, some stories are printable, others are not. Some are dipped in cricketing nostalgia, others are his thoughts on the present state of Sri Lankan cricket and his future ambitions but here we'll stick to the cricket.

Ranatunga talks with that lovely Sri Lankan lilt, where he appears to be almost singing out some of his words. He becomes animated when he talks about the best fast bowler he has faced – Wasim Akram. "He could do anything. He could bowl at 150 kph one delivery and the next ball he could knock your stump out with a slow delivery. And of course he could bowl his fastest after a few steps."

"I remember him hitting me on the helmet with a nasty bouncer," he says, ducking as he says it. "I adjust my helmet, look up and he's ready to bowl! He'd turned around after taking five steps into his bowling mark. I'm not ready, no! He runs in and again hits me on the helmet. If I'm reborn as a cricketer, I'd like to be Wasim Akram." It fits.

Ranatunga, a commanding, aggressive captain, can't be content playing those delicate late cuts - he wants to be the complete fast bowler who can swing, reverse swing, york and bounce you out."He was the most natural cricketer that I saw."

High praise considering he has been associated with Sir Garry Sobers, who was Sri Lanka's coach when Ranatunga started his career and was instrumental in getting him into the team. "Oh he was a genius. Once, in England, the ball was seaming around a lot and we were being beaten and finding the nicks. He stormed across, 'What are you lot doing? Hey fat boy! Give me your gloves.' I offered the bat as well. He brushed me aside and took out a stump.Just a stump, you know. And he played six balls and connected perfectly.

"I remember another incident. This was later, after his coaching days. I was in the nets and he was standing way above in one of the enclosures and watching me. He called me in later and asked, 'Why are you holding the bat this way?' I hadn't realised that my grip had changed. He told me what my ideal grip would be but asked me to not to try it during the tour. I changed it the next game and got a high score.

He charged after me and said, "I told you not to change the grip mid-game and mid-tour. You never do some thing like that!' And I told him, 'Sir Garry' – Ranatunga never ever called him just Sobers even once in the conversation – 'you are genius and I am a genius too. So I managed to pull it off!' We both had a good laugh. He is a great man."

The talk shifts inevitably to Shane Warne. Ranatunga traces the relationship to the first time Warne came to Sri Lanka to bowl. "There was such hype over what he would do to us. I walked in and saw that there was nothing so great. I hit him for a six straightaway and immediately Asanka Gurusinha came across and said, 'Machang cool down. Take it easy.'"

Ranatunga, Gurusinha and Romesh Kaluwitharana all hit centuries as Warne went wicketless in the first innings. "But he came back to pick up three quick wickets at the end of the second innings and Australia won. He went on to become a very good bowler indeed."

But we weren't about to let him go with that platitude, were we? "I had an injury to my hand and when I went in to bat, I was taking my bottom hand off the handle while defending. Warne had men in the deep. He walked up to me and said, 'Hey you're showing respect to Warney?'

'Respect?', I said. 'I'm crippled here and you are bowling with men in the deep. Why don't you bring them in?' He did."

Ranatunga chuckles as he adds, "I went down on my knees and hit him over deep midwicket. He then bowled a googly and I called out googly as I played it to the off side. It was good fun!"

So if it's not Warne who was the best spinner that he faced. "It was Abdul Qadir. I had problems picking his googly." Murali's doosras? Ranatunga didn't have any trouble picking Muralitharan's doosras, though.

The talk moves to Sachin Tendulkar and his admiration seeps through an anecdote. "We got him out twice in consecutive games with a man standing at short very square point. The next game, you won't believe, he never hit one shot in that region. Not one."

Ranatunga has featured in only three advertisements so far. The first was to raise funds for the General Hospital, the second for a polio drive and the third for a garbage disposal campaign. All were done for free. "I got 250 rupees for my first Test and traveled by train to the game. After that Lipton Tea came in and said they would offer me 250,000 rupees to feature in an advertisement. I asked them to meet my mother. And she told them, 'My son is not for sale'. I was lying in my bed that night when she came and sat next to me and explained her decision. I still remember what she said: 'Son, remember, never ever sell your talent and face for anything.'"

	Ravindra Jadeja impressed with the bat on debut © AFP

Ravindra Jadeja had his first taste of international cricket today and he showed that he belongs there. He didn't embarrass himself. Through the last ten days, whenever one has bumped into him at the team hotel, Jadeja has always been talking about grabbing his chance when the
opportunity comes

In the morning, ahead of Jadeja's first one-day international, Sachin Tendulkar gave him the India cap on the ground. It's been a 12-year dream for Jadeja. It's the story of a young boy and his
mother standing firm on the path to walk in life. When he was just eight and beginning to fall in love with the game, his father, a security guard, decided he had to join the army and was just a
day away from enrolling him. Jadeja cajoled his mother to persuade his father from doing it.

Later, he made his first-class debut in a Duleep Trophy game in 2006 and hit a 49-ball 53 with six fours and two sixes against an attack comprising Anil Kumble, Sreesanth, L Balaji and Pragyan Ojha.

Jadeja's mother passed away in 2005 and he has been nursing her dream. "She wanted to see me in Indian colours. Losing her was the saddest moment of my life." The young boy has fulfilled his promise.

It didn't get off to a great start, though. Sanath Jayasuriya cut one hard at Jadeja, reputed to be a fine fielder, but he clanged it. It must have upset the boy but he willed on. And he had a mini-redemption with a run out. Farveez Maharoof had turned a ball past square leg and
immediately called for two. He shouldn't have, because Jadeja hared in from the deep and fired in a flat, fast and accurate throw at the bails.

The attention swung to his batting. When he walked in, Jadeja's partner was his captain. He didn't pick a couple of deliveries from Ajantha Mendis but with a little bit of help from Mahendra Singh Dhoni, he improved and started to look the part.

With a reputation of being able to hit a long ball on the domestic circuit, Jadeja's best shot today was a delicate late cut. Jayasuriya fired in a 97kph delivery skidding from a length around the off stump. Jadeja was initially on the front foot but pressed back quickly to play a deft shot. It was the second of his five boundaries but the best of the lot.

Shane Warne, his IPL captain, may well have texted him. "We identified him as a special talent straight away," Warne said back then. Shane Watson too was impressed. "He was hitting it wherever he wanted, against bowlers of the quality of Brett Lee."

In domestic cricket, Jadeja has often thrown his wicket away, going for the big shots. In a quarterfinal game in 2006 against Mumbai, 13 runs short of his maiden hundred, he gave it away with a slog sweep. Shitanshu Kotak, his senior team-mate in Saurashtra, called him a
gadha (donkey) in jest for the next few days. Jadeja simply laughed, then. Today, he didn't throw it away. The captain was happy.

Jadeja might have done enough to get himself a seat on a certain flight to New Zealand.

When you visit the Tamil Union Club house at the P Sarvanamuttu Stadium, a huge portrait of Don Bradman walking out to toss in 1948 with a Sri Lankan legend, Mahadevan Sathasivam, welcomes you.

Sathasivam is revered by the old timers in India for the 215 he made in just over four hours at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, considered one of the best knocks played in Chennai. The local legend here talks of a 96 out of a total of 150 on a sticky wicket against the visiting Commonwealth team. Frank Worrell, who played in that game, and Garry Sobers hailed Sathasivam as a great batsman. Ghulam Ahmed, that wizard of an offspinner who bowled to the likes of Everton Weekes, Sobers, Len Hutton, Rohan Kanhai, Denis Compton and Hanif Mohammad, also named Sathasivam as the best batsman he had ever bowled to. For the cricket history buffs, Sathasivam would breeze into a World XI from the non-Test playing era.

Enough about his batting. It's the man we are interested in. He apparently was a flamboyant figure with a penchant for the good life. The Keith Miller of Sri Lanka. Historian Michael Roberts plays killjoy though. "And subsequently Neville Jayaweera has confirmed this speculation: "Satha was a hopeless fielder, never chased a ball, dropped catches and all because for most of the time he was drunk," Roberts wrote. I am beginning to like Satha even more.

However the point Roberts, who also rates Sathasivam as a great batsman, raised is that you have to be careful about setting bad examples to the current generation, when talking about tales of past cricketers hitting hundreds after drinking through the night. For what it's worth, his fielding might have suffered, but Sathasivam did hit hundreds after partying through the night.

There is one more twist in Sathasivam’s colorful story, though. He was charged with murdering his wife with an 'ammi kal', a cylindrical grinding-stone, and was put in jail, where he was met by a visiting West Indian team that is said to have included Sobers and Worrell. After a widely followed trial where Dr Colvin R de Silva, a high-profile attorney, proved that it was a servant in the house who was the culprit, Sathasivam was released and carried from the court on the shoulders of his fans.

Sathasivam’s friend, Alfred Gogerly Moragoda, a distinguished civil servant, gives us a glimpse into the character of the man. While in jail, Sathasivam asked whether Alfred's wife thought he was the murderer. Alfred confessed that his wife and her friends did think Sathasivam was guilty. When he was leaving, Sathasivam asked him to pass on a message to his wife. "Tell her she is next on the list!"

"Tidy but excitable behind the stumps." That's how BBC profiles Romesh Kaluwitharana. I meet him sitting behind a corporate desk now. The cabin has a lovely view of the serene Beira Lake, with the blue-roofed Seema Malakaya temple sitting gently on its waters which wind around tall business buildings and a picturesque ground in the heart of Colombo. "Little Kalu", the darling of the crowds and excitable commentators, is now a business executive with Sri Lanka tourism. He still looks supremely fit and now sports a designer hair style, with hair strands running down in thin lines towards his forehead. He is attired in formals and looks pretty natty indeed.

Everyone knows that Kaluwitharana, known for his feisty cuts and pulls, was a very attacking batsman but he prided himself for being a correct player. Asked once what gave him most pleasure among his achievements, he said: "That I never played a reverse sweep all my life. I always played correct cricket."

He displayed that technique in ample measure during the series that he stormed into public memory. Everyone knows how Kaluwitharana formed an explosive opening combination with Sanath Jayasuriya during the victorious 1996 World Cup campaign. But it was on the controversial tour of Australia, where Muttiah Muralitharan was no balled for throwing, that he made a name for himself as an opener, shredding the bowlers.

During the tour, instead of cricket discussions the team suddenly found itself meeting lawyers instead. "The focus was not on cricket. Arjuna Ranatunga did a great job of getting the team united to play in the ODIs," Kaluwitharana said. After a few games, the team management decided to send Kaluwitharana to open. "I had done it before in 1991 against New Zealand. I only scored 14 but from 12 balls."

However, in this series, Kaluwitharana struck gold and earned the nickname "Little Kalu". "I got three Man-of-the Match awards and grabbed my chance," he said The first person Kaluwitharana called after winning the trophy was his mother. He lost his father when he was seven and it was his mother who supported him to play cricket. And she was ailing then. "She was suffering from Parkinson's disease. She was very proud of my achievements."

The talk shifts to batting with Jayasuriya. "Sanath doesn't talk much in the middle. He would say, 'Play tight. Play tight'. We attacked from both ends. Sometimes when Sanath was going really well I would take singles and watch the great player bat."

How did he manage to incense the Australians? "When Shane Warne and the other Aussies would say something, I would reply in Sinhalese. They wouldn't understand and go mad and say, why you don't say something in English. I might be even saying I love you in Sinhalese with an angry face or say something else with a smiling face. It was real good fun."

He hit a fifty in his last Test in 2004 before retiring. He thought life would get less busy but instead it got more demanding. Kalu wakes up every day at 4.45 am, hits the office gym at 5.45 and is in his seat at 7.30. He works till 3.30 pm before heading to the ground to coach. And in the evening, he is busy managing his pet project, a boutique hotel called Kalu's Hideaway, situated in Udawalle.

He shows me some pretty pictures of the hotel on his laptop. "I learned to use the computer after I left cricket. I would say the job is easier for me than a normal person. I am in PR and sales. Sometimes, with new clients we talk cricket for a while before moving to business.

"When I took off the gloves I did it with lots of happiness. I had my plans for what I would do later." Kalu's BBC profile needs to be updated: the "excitable" wicketkeeper is tidy and calm behind the corporate desk at least.

It was 11.45pm last night when some of us journalists walked into the bar where we bumped into the India team celebrating the series win. They were in full strength. On one side of the dimly lit bar, which shook with loud Hindi film remixes, a few cricketers were playing pool. Some drank, some didn't.

Yuvraj and the young brigade led by Rohit Sharma, Ishant Sharma, Suresh Raina and Pragyan Ojha had already begun shaking a leg. Sehwag and Gambhir parked themselves at one table with Gary Kirsten; Sachin Tendulkar was having a long chat with Paddy Upton. Mahendra Singh Dhoni was everywhere.

Suddenly, the Tamil song, Manmada Raasa blared out and a whistle rang through the room. It was L Balaji at work. Slowly, the dancers dragged everybody on the floor at various points - even Kirsten, who responded by vigorously shaking every limb, and Upton were not spared. Tendulkar never let himself completely loose but swayed around rhythmically. Sameer Dighe, the former India wicketkeeper, was there too and played pool with Tendulkar. Cries of cheating went up and now then from Dighe. Those gathered around the pool table laughed.

Some journalists approached Dhoni for permission to photograph the team celebrating. "No, yaar. Let them celebrate peacefully. I just want them to enjoy the moment."

Fair enough.

I don’t remember any of Brendon Kuruppu’s shots. However, as a kid, I scored lots of runs playing as Kuruppu in hard-fought games in the backyard, on the terrace and sometimes even in the living room. My brother and I often played as international teams, 11 Gaaji was the name of the game, and Kuruppu was lucky for me when I played as Sri Lanka. Kuruppu was also one of the first Sri Lankan names I learnt from the grainy Doordarshan footage. I loved the way the name rolled of my tongue, I thought it was funny. And so I was thrilled when I learnt that he was the manager of the Sri Lankan team.

Kuruppu still looks the same from when I remember him – lean and sporting a thick moustache. He was an aggressive opening batsman who made a name for himself as one of the pioneers of hitting the new ball over the inner circle. “I was one of the first batsmen to go over the top,” Kuruppu said. “Kris Srikkanth was almost parallel, or just after me, in India. I thought it would be easier to score runs that way. I was not doing that in school and club cricket but later on I felt this would be a better way." He recalls one of his aggressive moments. "It was the World Cup game against Pakistan in 1983. I hit Mudassar Nazar over long-on, a long way out of the ground on to the road."

However, it was not a rapid innings but the slowest double hundred in the history of the game that we ended up talking about. Kuruppu, the dashing wicket-keeper batsman, crawled through 777 minutes and faced 548 balls against New Zealand in Colombo to become the first Sri Lankan to score a double-century. He was only the third batsman after Tip Foster and Lawrence Rowe to hit a double-century on his debut.

Kuruppu made his Test debut after four years of one-day cricket. "I had to prove that I was not only an attacking player but could also defend." Poor New Zealand had to pay the price. There was another reason as well. "One of the high-ranking board officials told me after my selection, 'You were picked not because you are good, but because the other keepers aren’t scoring runs'. Kuruppu had hit three consecutive hundreds in provincial games just before selection. "If that is not good, then I don't know what is good. Anyway I had to prove myself."

For a man under pressure, he slept well before the game. Next morning, on a pitch with even bounce, he dug in against the likes of Richard Hadlee and Ewen Chatfield. "Hadlee used to run through our line-up,” he said. “Apart from Roy Dias and Ranjan Madugalle, not many had faced him comfortably."

Kuruppu eased along slowly and, egged on by team-mates like Asanka Gurusinha during the breaks, he kept batting. He went past 100, 150 and only when he reached 189 did he feel nervous for the first time. "191 was the highest score by a Sri Lankan – Sidath Wettimuny against England at Lord's – and we were nine wickets down."

Kosala Kuruppuarachchi, who had not scored a single run in his only Test, walked out to the middle. "Hang in there. Let me get these three runs," Kuruppu told him. "Don't worry,” Kuruppuarachchi replied. “I will stay till you get the double hundred." The thought of 200 had not yet entered Kuruppu's mind.

"It was amazing. Hadlee and Chatfield kept hitting him [Kuruppuarachchi] on the body but he never gave up. I still remember those last 13 runs. I was really tense." Kuruppuarachchi didn't score a run during his 35-minute stay, and that was his last Test, but it must have been the best duck he had ever made.

Finally, after four years, Kuruppu had proved to the board official and to the rest of the world that he was a Test player. "I was in the field for all five days and there was not a
single bye. I showed that there was nothing for anyone to point a finger at me."

However, he couldn't really cherish the moment. On the evening of the final day of the Test, a bomb exploded in the central bus stand of Colombo. The second Test was in doubt. New Zealand were not willing to travel to Kandy. "The board even videotaped the whole road journey from Colombo to Kandy to show that it was safe but the New Zealand players were shell-shocked by the incident and cancelled the tour."

Sri Lanka got to play only four Tests in the next four years and Kuruppu decided to retire in 1991 due to lack of cricket and selection problems. Ironically, Sri Lanka played 12 Tests in 1992. "That was indeed very frustrating. Anyway that's done and gone."

Couple of years after that special double-century, Kuruppu ran into Hadlee and Chatfield. "Have you ever got out after that?" they asked. Kuruppu laughed then and laughs now. "The New Zealand players remembered me as the guy who they couldn't get out for two and half days."

"You will be playing him?" Murali asks Venkatesh Prasad about L Balaji. "Hey Bala, full toss for me ok!"

A short while earlier, Murali's eyes had almost goggled out when he saw his IPL team-mate Balaji sitting at the breakfast table. "Hey what are you doing here? Are you here as a commentator?" Balaji laughed and explained the real reason. Murali, still not convinced, checks with Praveen Kumar, who explains Munaf Patel has gone back to India.

Murali’s eyes light up and he joins the table. "So a great domestic season, eh? And how is the action now? Same? What new tricks have you added?" The questions keep coming and Balaji tries his best to match Murali's rapid-fire Tamil. Both share their IPL memories and continue their conversation, which is punctuated by constant laughter.

Ravindra Jadeja joins in and Murali asks him, "Hey, any changes in your IPL team? Is Shane Watson playing? Good player," before he purses his lip while his right wrist delivers an offbreak, suggesting Watson can be a bit iffy against spin.

"So coming in April [to India for IPL]," asks Balaji. "Yeah. Batsman's game. I am in good batting form now," says Murali. Praveen and Balaji laugh.

Balaji was in Mumbai, about to leave for a pilgrimage when he got the news of his selection. Couple of flights later he eased into Colombo last night. From then on, it's been a happy reunion with team-mates. He is back in the national squad after three torturous years, recuperating with injuries but has shown an admirable mental strength to fight his way back.

Prasad drops in the table. "Welcome back Bala." Gary Kirsten drops by with a couple of forms for Balaji to sign. Farveez Maharoof, Dilhara Fernando and Nuwan Kulasekara offer their congratulations and best wishes.

"Hindi bol leta hai yeh?" [Can he speak Hindi?] I ask Praveen. "Haan haan kar leta hai bhai." [Yes he can manage] And Balaji assures, "Teek taak hindi bol leta hoon yaar. I didn't learn in school but picked up while playing." The leg-pulling and laughter continue as one by one the other members of Indian and Sri Lankan squad drop in to welcome Bala.

What do the Indian players do on a Sunday evening during a tour? Some like Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina go to watch the movie Victory, which premiered here a couple of days ago..

The film’s stars have been in the team hotel for the last two days. All I can tell you about Amrita Rao, the heroine, is that she made me hit the gym. I peep in but head out immediately. Fat men don't run.

Ravindra Jadeja comes out of the gym sweating, munching an apple. “Didn't go for the movie?” I ask. "Nah boss,” he says. Jadeja is desperately keen to play in the series but is realistic about his chances. "The team might want to win the series first before giving chances to the likes of me."

Jadeja is in awe of Shane Warne, his captain at the Rajasthan Royals. So what's so special about him? "Everything,” Jadeja says. “He put everyone at ease and he was a brilliant captain, making some great decisions on the field. Small things, the way he encouraged us to play our natural games, helped us grow in confidence. Warne is a gem of a person. I really enjoyed the time with him in IPL. Graeme Smith was also good, very professional, and I learnt a lot."

Has Warne taught him how to text better and faster as well? Jadeja laughs. At least drink? More laughs. "I don't drink,” he says. “There used to be beers and drinks flowing in the IPL parties. I never touched them." Not even one itsy bitsy gulp? "No!" Let's see in two years boss! "Arre, I didn't drink playing with Warne, so I don't see a problem with our cricketers!"

Has he spent time with Sachin Tendulkar? "Yeah I have spoken [to him] but I would like to sit down and have a proper chat sometime during this series."

Jadeja adds, "If and when I get a chance, I will make sure I play my natural game." When you are a teenager and rub shoulders with Tendulkar and Warne, the future can’t help but appear rosy.

	Virender Sehwag doesn't go easy on the bowlers even in the nets © AFP

The song Koi karta hoga mera intezaar (some one will be waiting for me) fills the air on a humid afternoon. Virender Sehwag is the singer. That shouldn't raise eyebrows but Sehwag is singing while thumping the bowlers in the nets. Alongside him, Tendulkar asks Munaf Patel to move away from his position behind the bowler's arm. I park myself at a wicketkeeper's eye view, just behind the netting to watch the guru and shishya (disciple) go about their business.

The bat speed of Sehwag is mesmerizing. He places his bat just before the instep of the back foot, with bat facing first slip, and keeps still as the bowler releases. Then the furious activity begins. The feet move a little, just enough to maintain balance and get him going towards the ball but, more importantly, making room for his bat to come crashing down. The head remains still, absolutely still. And that wrist-cock gets the bat down in a marvellous blur. He is constantly trying to score runs off every ball. No dead-batting unless the ball is really a gem. If he can't hit it hard, he is trying to open the bat-face and run it into imagined gaps.

And he constantly teases the bowlers. "Patha nahi chal raha hai na, kidhar daaloon, kya karoon? (Struggling to find where to bowl, eh?), he asks one of the spinners. Both the bowler and the batsman laugh. Sehwag keeps watching Tendulkar bat, passing comments, “Shot Master! Wah ji Wah! (bravo).” He also pulls Tendulkar's leg now and then by praising the bowler who has got the better of him. Tendulkar simply laughs.

After hitting one straight back at Suresh Raina, Sehwag shouts, "Now I have to hit you. Tere ko Mendis & Murali thodi banney denge (I am not going to allow you to become a Mendis or a Murali.) The next Raina delivery is deposited to the long-on boundary with mischievous laughter.

It's all not fun, though. Sehwag asks bowlers what their field positions are and tries various shots and predicts how many runs each stroke will fetch. He also tells the bowler how well he is bowling or what is lacking. He focuses on his footwork, taking care that the trigger movement is not affecting the arc of the bat.

	Sachin Tendulkar is always experimenting during practice sessions © AFP

Tendulkar too seems to be having lots of fun. He punches Praveen Kumar on-the-up straight past him and asks, "Pakad leta usko?" (You would have stopped that?). The next ball, he reprises the shot with more punch and this time there is no need to ask that question.

Once he mistimes a short-of-length ball down the wicket and tells a curious Sehwag - who wonders why Tendulkar didn't whip it through midwicket - that he is trying something new with his back lift. So I crouch to watch as well. The top hand is limp, there is minimal back lift as the bat tilts into position, ready and waiting for the ball to arrive, before he thumps the ball hard, taking care to hit it straight past the bowler. There’s only a tiny arc of the bat but it imparts tremendous velocity to the ball at the moment of impact.

Sehwag, meanwhile, moves into the nets where Gary Kirsten is giving throw downs. The teasing continues. "Don't bowl there, mate!" Sehwag says after he plays a feisty square cut. "I don't want you to feel low in confidence before a game," replies Kirsten to which Sehwag laughs before turning serious. "Just try to bowl dot balls and as tight as possible. I will try to see how I can get them away for singles and twos." He punches one on the up and says, "Lovely! That is a Tendulkar shot."

And his guru has moved to the spin nets and is now trying various shots: paddle-sweeps, late-cuts, slog-sweeps, and even reverse-sweeps. Once, Tendulkar’s leg stump is pegged back by Ojha after he misses a jumping switch-hit. "It was in the slot yaar," says Tendulkar. Towards the end of the session, Tendulkar leans forward, bends his knees, and scoops a flighted delivery around off and middle over the slips. "Two runs," exclaims Tendulkar. "And that's enough for the day now. Let's go." Tendulkar and Sehwag walk out of the batting nets. The photographers too left, humming Koi Karta hoga ....

	Ajith Perera, the first Sri Lankan to qualify as a professional umpire © Cricinfo Ltd

On December 12, 1992, a 35-year old Ajith Perera got the letter he had spent years waiting for. The man who became the first Sri Lankan to qualify as the professional umpire after a final exam at Lord's in 1985 was about to stand in his first Test, between Sri Lanka v New Zealand, when it happened. He read the appointment letter a few times and left the board office to get back home to share the proud moment with his parents.

He didn’t get home for the next two years. It was a stormy day and Perera was sitting in his car with the letter when nature intervened. A big wayside tree crashed against the car, killing the driver and instantly rendering Perera a paraplegic for life.

But the Perera story began where it might have ended for him. An author of two books, and a campaigner for better access in public spaces for the mobility-disabled people, and speaks without a trace of self-pity. If anything, there is an awareness of his mental strength and a pride in overcoming the greatest obstacle that had killed his biggest dream.

"Retired hurt but not out," Perera says with a crackling laugh that blows away your hesitation about bringing up the accident. It doesn't feel nice to call up someone and ask him to speak about something that you yourself would not have been talking to a stranger about had it happened to you. But Perera puts you at ease and uses the conversation to ask you to highlight his battles for public access.

Perera runs an organisation and has worked with hotels like the Taj Samudra to make it friendlier to mobility-handicapped people. But he has been unable to convince the Sri Lankan board. "None of the cricket stadiums in Sri Lanka are friendly to people like me. I have written to the board, to the sports minister several times but no action has been taken. Aren't we a part of the society? Don't we have a right to see a cricket match?"

Perera has been to a cricket ground only once after his accident. The British High Commission invited him to its box in a 2003 Test match for a day. "The toilets were non-usable for people like me and it was a really unpleasant experience."

We return to his accident to understand how he was inspired to get back to living his life. Perera was lying on the bed in the General Hospital for ten months before help came. A chartered-chemist by profession, he was a fellow of the chemical society and was taken to London for treatment. Back home, there were no experts in dealing with spinal-cord injuries and he slowly recovered in London. There he learnt "how small things in your immediate surroundings, access, people, can make the life easy for people like me". He decided that once he returned to Colombo his life ambition would be to use his "ability in this disability" to improve things for handicapped people.

And he has not restrained himself to only that. Alongside his umpiring exams, he also qualified as an advanced scorer and as a trained umpiring instructor, besides helping the Sri Lanka Board in administration of the 1996 World Cup. The 2000 Wisden Almanack recognised him as one of the ‘cricket people of 1999'. That was then.

Currently, his battle for the welfare of the disabled is still on. "The World Cup is coming here in two years. Will the stadiums be friendlier? Don't herd us like a cattle in a group in some corner. How about opening small enclosures on either side of the pavilion?" Is Sri Lanka Cricket willing to listen, though?

Key numbers jotted down during a joint press conference given by Mahela Jayawardene and Mahendra Singh Dhoni in Colombo on Monday.

30 minutes: The delay (the captains were on time but a minister was late)

1 minute: Before the standard "It's great for the youngsters to seize the opportunity" line was mentioned. By both captains.

9 mins: Before the first Dhoni wisecrack. Asked whether the lack of recent international cricket would affect the team, he said: "It depends on the result of the first match. If we win, people will say we were fresh, if we lose, we were rusty!"

12 mins: Before the first tricky question (and evasive answer). After Dhoni said Sri Lankan wickets could behave strangely, a local reporter asked, "Don't the Indian wickets behave funnily?" Jayawardene said, "I haven't played in India for a while now".

13 mins: Before Ajantha Mendis' name was brought up by a reporter. Dhoni's reply: "No special plans. We played him pretty well the last time we came here. It's just up to the individuals to pick him from his hand."

17 mins: Before Jayawardene's poor form was questioned. "Obviously I am trying hard. It's not easy that you have so many games coming at you all the time. It's about just working hard at the nets and I am doing that."

Finally, 10 seconds: before those assembled dispersed, after the press conference ended, to the drinks counter.

"You look frightening. You should shave." Since it came from a woman I’ve known for three decades, I just shrugged it aside before leaving for the Bangalore airport. Mothers can be cruel. She had another piece of advice, which I will come to later.

"What's the purpose of your visit?" "Cricket" brings a smile and a favourable quick stamp on the passport at the visa counter in Colombo airport. He starts to ask something – my guess it was about Indian cricketers – but, maybe because I’m fat, bearded and generally looking like the kind of person you don't want to introduce your daughter to, the question stopped in his throat. I need to shave. He might have had a pretty daughter.

The information desk tells me the taxi fare to the hotel will cost me 2300 Sri Lankan rupees. That will get me 80 shaves in the hole in the wall back home. I decide to take the bus and bump into Jehan.

"Are you from Punjab?" he asks. I need to shave. "I know Hindi as I work in Dubai and know many Indians. Lots of Kerala people, you know; 70% of the workers. They tend to keep to themselves and don't move around with others much." The airport bus takes us to a depot where Jehan helps me to get another that will take me to Colombo. He even calls up the hotel and finds out I should pay a maximum of 200 rupees as auto fare after I get down from the bus in the city. And, as he leaves, he shakes my hand and says, expansively, "Welcome to Sri Lanka". I bet it's something he always wanted to say. It's something that I have also wanted to say – India, of course, not Sri Lanka– but it comes a distant second after "This is how it all happened," a la Hercule Poirot.

The bus is a rickety van, just like you would find in Indian towns. The curtain has been unwashed for months; the dark-film coating on the window is peeling off at places and in spite of my baggage blocking the narrow aisle, the passengers just hop over the barricade without any complaints. As I push aside the curtain, Aishwarya Rai smiles at me from a hoarding. A little while into the journey, Shahrukh Khan says, "Hello Sri Lanka, it's nice to be here," in a banner for a telecom company, and Mahela Jayawardene tries to sell me a soft drink throughout the journey. The biggest hoarding, though, belongs to Ajantha Mendis, who thrusts a meat ball at me; alas, the middle finger is not bent.

"You a Pakistani?" asks the auto driver, who, like his Indian counterparts, won't settle for anything less than 250 rupees. I really need that shave. "Petrol costly, so auto costly," he explains. As the auto, without any sign of a meter, rolls along the deserted Sunday-evening road punctuated by army patrols, he puts me at ease. "No worry. You can walk in the evenings. Safe. One more week and this (the current military offensive against LTTE) will finish."

I check into a hotel near the President's house and immediately set out to explore the area. A little further away, I spot a small, bustling tea shop. I park myself in a chair, sipping my tea amid dim lights, busy waiters and Tamil film music in the air. An announcer in the lovely Lankan Tamil twang gives details of the next song. Memories of Radio Ceylon and 'Adhutha Padal' flood in. If you want to smoke, go to that room, a boy says, pointing to a cell-like inner room.

"Don't speak in Tamil there. Fight going on … ille?" Those were my mother's final words as I left my home. "Thalaiva, inga shave panre edam enga? (Where can I get a shave here?)," I ask a waiter in Tamil. He warms up and. On learning why I’m here, predicts that Sri Lanka will beat India.

With a smile, I head to Raja Salon, a hole-in-the-wall barber shop. A Sinhalese version of Mind Your Language is playing on the wall-mounted TV and the three barbers in the shop laugh away as they bend over the customers' heads with scissors. A multi-armed goddess sitting on a tiger is framed on the wall and an old wall-clock hung at a rakish angle. Just like in India. But unlike the Indian version, where you would find dated decades-old film magazines with a pouting, teasing Sridevi on the cover and all the dope on the Amitabh-Rekha affair inside, this one had only newspapers and a political magazine.

After getting a thinly trimmed beard that run in sharp lines on my face for 80 rupees, I go back to the tea shop where the boy nods approvingly at my appearance and walk around again for a while before heading back to the hotel around 9.30 pm. It's a budget hotel that I had checked into just for the night but the room is spacious and the bed is huge with three pillows. Who did they think I was, Caligula? The view from the balcony is mesmeric. The sea in all its splendour spreads out to the horizon and the gentle lapping of the waves is really soothing. Shahrukh was right. It's nice to be here in the tear-shaped island. And I promise cricket from the next post.