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Who was the first Sri Lankan to play representative cricket in Sri Lanka, before it achieved test status, and also play Sheffield Shield cricket in Australia?

This sounds like one of those trivial questions the Australian television channel broadcasting the one-day matches puts to its viewers. Except that with regard to the above question, the achievements of pat McCarthy are far from trivial. Now Pat McCarthy (79) lives alone in Perth-his wife died 11 years ago-surrounded by memorabilia. Because of a bad knee he was not able to accept an invitation to attend the ceremonial presentation of a bat by the Chairman of the Board of Control of Cricket in Sri Lanka (BCCSL) to the West Australian Cricket Association (WACA) on January 28. The bat was autographed by members of the Sri Lanka team that won the World Cup in Lahore in 1996.

McCarthy was missed at the ceremony since he is the oldest living link in cricket between Australia and Sri Lanka. With this presentation at the WACA grounds in Perth-Pat's old home ground-it would be singularly appropriate to recall Pat's outstanding record as a cricketer. Pat has made an invaluable contribution to the sport as well as to furthering Australian-Sri lankan relations. His achievements highlight for the present generation a great Sri Lankan sportsman, a worthy exponent of the noble game of cricket from an earlier era.

More than six decades ago, McCarthy had begun showing his prowess on the cricket ovals of Colombo. Such was his cricketing ability that in 1935, at the age of 15, he was selected to play for Royal College. In 1936, McCarthy was included in the Royal College eleven captained by Ryle de Soysa, that toured Australia-the first by an Asian team at any level of cricket - and in 1938 he captained the College team.

McCarthy was his team's highest scorer on the Australian tour. the legendary cricketer Bill Wood fully judged him at that stage to be a better batsman than Keith Miller.

In 1938-18 years old and still a schoolboy, McCarthy (at that time captain of Royal) was chosen to play for Ceylon against the Australian Test team led by Don Bradman. He batted in the coveted No. 4 position. Stan McCabe captained Australia in this particular match and Hassett and Badcock scored centuries for the visitors. Those were the years when Australian and English teams travelled by ship and were glad to go ashore in Colombo to shake off there sea legs by playing a one-day match against the Ceylon side In the 1938 match, McCarthy showed his fielding skills by caching both openers Fingleton and Brown - on the boundary. Pat continued his cricket career with great success with the Nondescripts Cricket Club (NCC) and is considered by many to have been the finest batsman to play for the Club. This is despite the great array of top-flight NCC batsmen who have represented Sri Lanka over the past several decades. His favourite strokes were the hook and the straight drives on both sides of the wicket. In the ten or so years prior to his departure for Australia in 1948, Pat amassed a veritable mountain of runs scoring two double centuries, ten centuries and over fifty half centuries in A division cricket. His outstanding record for the Club has prompted a leading cricket scribe to liken Pat to be to the NCC what M. Sathasivam was to the Tamil Union and Sargo Jayawickreme to the SSC.

It is interesting to note that Pat's marriage to his wife Yvonne linked him to the Kelaart family - a family that has produced many Sri Lankan sportsmen of note in cricket, hockey and other sports. Pat's cricketing prowess also earned him recognition in India. In 1939, he was one of two Sri Lankans invited to play for ``The Rest'' in India's Pentangular tournament. The other four participating teams were the Hindus, Muslims, Parsees and Europeans. One of Pat's most vivid recollections of the Tournament was Lala Amarnath's double century for the Hindus against ``The Rest''. Amarnath was garlanded by spectators each time he scored fifty runs. Six years later (1945) Vijay Merchant's Indian cricket team visited Sri Lanka and Pat scored a scintillating 88 runs against a formidable attack that included Amarnath, Mankad, Bannerjee and Rangachari. The innings was made more memorable by two towering sixes that thundered onto the stadium roof.

Though cricket was the sport at which Pat excelled, his sporting interests in Australia were by no means confined to cricket, the ``summer game''. He also participated at a competitive level in athletics, golf, rugger, soccer, swimming and tennis. In this regard, Professor Tony Barker of the University of Western Australia in Perth, cricket buff and historian of the WACA, after a recent interview with Pat, speaks of his ``remarkable all around skills.'' Indeed, it would not be an exaggeration to claim that Pat was one of the most versatile sportsmen the island of Sri Lanka has produced.

Pat's departure for Perth in Western Australia in 1948 was prompted, among other considerations, by reasons of health. It did not, however dim his enthusiasm for sport. Despite Sri Lankan cricket not enjoying the high profile and reputation it does today, by ability, talent and sheer weight of performance, Pat had the unique distinction of being one of the Asian-Australians to secure a place in the West Australian Sheffield Shield team (1951-53). Incidentally, this team was captained by Keith Carmody whom Pat had met in Sri Lanka when Carmody was a member of the touring Australian Services team.

Pat played from 1948-60 in the Perth metropolitan cricket competition: the first three years under Carmody before moving to other clubs between 1951-60, all of which recognised his leadership qualities by making him captain. Perhaps 1951 was Pat's most successful cricketing year in that during this season he amassed a total of 980 runs in inter-state and Perth metropolitan competition cricket. One memorable inter-state performance was his 88 against the State of South Australia. For this performance he had the rare honour of being personally congratulated for his stroke play by no less a person than Sir Donald Bradman. Another outstanding achievement of Pat was his 98 against the State of New South Wales in Sydney when he had to battle with cricketing giants like Miller, Lindwall, and Benaud who were in their prime.

Pat recalls in this interview with Professor Barker that he was only two runs short of this century when he was trapped leg before wicket by a Benaud top-spinner. Professor Barker also notes that the former Australian national selector Lawrie Sawle and others leading Australian cricketers to remember Pat as an exciting batsman always out to wrest the initiative with bold aggression-a Sri Lanka cricketing trait immortalised by the likes of Sathasivam and recently by Sanath Jayasuriya.

When Pat retired from cricket in 1960 he returned to another of his loves-golf. In 1962 he achieved every golfer's dream of a hole-in-one and during his serious golfing years played with a handicap of three. Living in retirement in Perth, Pat has one son living 15 minutes away and their other in Sydney. Though he is not in the best of health, he still has a wealth of memories and good friends to sustain him.

Cricket is often referred to as a gentlemen's game and this above all personifies Pat as a cricketing gentleman of outstanding ability and character. He brought into his cricket-as he does to his life-a sense of fairness, common sense, charm and modesty which ensures the respect of his fellowmen. He has been over the years, as many have observed, a great unofficial ambassador for Sri Lanka in Australia. He has always been a firm supporter of Sri Lankan cricket and Rendered great assistance to visiting Sri Lankan teams. In the cricket arena, he has been a trailblazer for Sri Lankans in Australia followed notably by Malcolm Francke in Queensland and Dav Wahtmore who played for Victoria and Australia.

In anyone's language, Pat McCarthy was indeed a Cricketer extraordinary.