In July 1981 Sri Lanka was accepted as the eighth Test-playing nation
Wisden called England’s two-week trip to Sri Lanka ‘delightful’, and by all accounts the tourists had a good time. Tagged on to the end of a tour to India, England were in Sri Lanka to offer themselves up as their hosts’ first adversaries in a Test match.
Sri Lanka, where cricket was introduced by British planters and soldiers in the first half of the eighteenth century, had been accepted by the International Cricket Council as the eighth Test-playing nation in July 1981. It was a momentous moment in the country’s history, according to Wisden, ‘final confirmation of Sri Lanka’s importance and standing as an independent nation’.
England were lined up as Sri Lanka’s first Test opponents, though first there were six months of frantic preparation as the Sri Lanka Board spent £100,000 on modernising the Colombo Oval, expanding its capacity to more than 20,000. Other venues in Galle and Kandy were also given a makeover as the country awaited the arrival of England. When they stepped off the plane Sri Lanka was frothing in excitement. ‘Banquets were being organised, special stamps and coins were issued, and businesses and shops were planning to shut on the first day of the Test,’ described Wisden.
In July 1981 Sri Lanka was accepted as the eighth Test-playing nation
The first match was in the picturesque setting of Kandy, a match against a President’s XI that ended in a draw, and there were back-to-back one-day internationals at the Sinhalese Sports Club. England won the first by 5 runs but lost the second ‘amid a tumult of local joy’. It was a fully deserved win, wrote Frank Keating in the Guardian, and he had concerns for England ahead of the impending one-off Test match. ‘It was a famous day for this dear little island and it was very good to be there. And after that, they were saying afterwards, you just wait till Wednesday.’
On the Wednesday Sri Lanka won the toss and decided to bat. They made a respectable 218 with Arjuna Ranatunga stroking a fine half-century. England managed just five more than their opponents in their first innings as Ashantha de Mel wreaked havoc among the English top order.
At the close of play on day three a major shock looked odds-on. Sri Lanka were 152 for two in their second innings, a lead of 147 on a pitch that was deteriorating. Alas, it was the Sri Lanka batting that deteriorated on day four as they lost their last seven wickets for 8 runs, England spinner John Emburey claiming five of them.
England knocked off the runs without trouble, but Sri Lanka had come out of their first Test with credit. As Wisden said, fourth-day collapse apart, they had done ‘enough in their first Test to show they deserved elevation to full membership of the International Cricket Conference’.
But there was one cause for concern for cricket’s yellow bible. Attendances at the Test match were low with the ground never near full on any of the four days, ‘this being variously attributed to high admission prices, television coverage and, disturbingly, the public’s preference for one-day cricket’.
They might have been cricketing neophytes, but already the Sri Lankan public knew what they wanted.