Remember Rajive Benedict, he was the epitome of left-arm swing bowling in the seventies and eighties before the arrival of the great Chaminda Vaas.
Benedict is best remembered for his sensational spell of bowling in the 1972 Battle of the Saints cricket encounter for St Joseph’s College when he took eight wickets for six runs to rout St Peter’s College for 36 in the second innings, the lowest total on record in the time-honoured series. His final bowling figures is something that is difficult to emulate: 14.5-12-6-8.
“That day I hit the spot and they couldn’t play me. The only guy whom I couldn’t get was Roy Dias (the Peterite captain) who was caught behind off my opening partner Chandana Fonseka,” recalled Benedict now domiciled in Toronto, Canada.
Benedict is currently in Sri Lanka meeting up with former colleagues of his from St Joseph’s and Tamil Union whom he represented before migrating to Canada.
 Rajive Benedict at 65 |
“The only reason that brought me to Sri Lanka again after eight years is to reunite with my friends who played with me in school and club and guys who had played against me. I don’t have so many relatives in Sri Lanka,” said Benedict, an insurance man throughout his life.
“I met a lot of the guys who played with me in school at a reunion on March 17 at Aitken Spence restaurant organized by my 1972 school captain Rohan Fernando who is a big guy there. Then on March 21 there was another reception at the Tamil Union where I met whoever is left from the team I played during my time. The night was spent talking about those days,” he said.
“Tamil Union is the place I grew up after I finished school. I played for Tamils before I played for college. It was nice to meet up with the guys who guided me along when I joined them as a schoolboy especially people like Felix Perumal, Selva Perumal, Muttiah Devaraj, and of course S Skandakumar who is not here. I met up with Indrajit Coomaraswamy as well after so many years maybe over 30. It was a really nice evening to meet everybody. That is the thing in the game of cricket it has brought me so many friends who are lifelong.”
Benedict also bumped into Chaminda Vaas by chance. “I have never met him before I had only seen him on TV. It was a really good opportunity for me to say hello to him. He had done well for Sri Lanka. He knew who I was. We just bumped into each other and didn’t spend a lot of time. I told him that I had watched him on TV and admired his bowling. He remembered my bowling of 8 for 6 but I don’t think he was in school at that time. He was a pretty nice guy, very down to earth.”
On a green top or on a surface that provides any kind of assistance Benedict who bowls left-arm medium fast was unplayable.
Rolling back the years Benedict stated: “In the three big matches I played against St Peter’s in 1970, 1971 and 1972 we won two in 1970 and in 1972 when I had 10-wicket hauls on each occasion. In 1971 I took six wickets in the match. In the club scene I have a lot of memories the one that stands out is the game against Bloomfield at the P Sara Oval in 1975. Bloomfield had about seven Sri Lankan players in their team that was captained by Lalith Kaluperuma. In the first three games Bloomfield had topped 300 runs and the headline before the match was ‘can Tamils sustain the Bloomfield batting?’. We won the toss and put them into bat on a green top and skittled them out for 41. I ended up getting six wickets with a hat-trick. We won the match outright and it was against a mighty Bloomfield side of that time. That was a game that I will never forget.
“Then I got 9 for 24 against Peradeniya University which included a hat-trick and in 1981 Tamil Union won the Donovan Andree trophy division II championship under my captaincy. That was also a memorable year because out of the 23 guys who played throughout the season about 16 were schoolboys who played under 14 and under 16 cricket. The seniors who played with me helped me groom these young guys who ended up playing big time cricket,” he recalled.
Benedict who has been resident in Canada for 34 years said, “I left school in 1972 and continued playing for Tamil Union. In 1984 after the riots my sisters suddenly decided to settle down in Canada and they sponsored us, I went with my family. I came to Sri Lanka in 2010 but couldn’t make it for about eight years because my mother was very sick, she passed away in May 2016. Then my brother fell sick and being the oldest in the family I couldn’t leave them. In times of need you have to be there for them. I have two boys who are both married.”
Benedict has made a name for himself in Canada heading a Sri Lankan club called Centurion CC. “As a matter of fact we have done quite well. We have guys like Brian Rajadurai, Nigel Isaac, Srimantha Wijeratne, a Peterite who now plays for Canada, and Ruvinda Gunasekera playing for us.
“We had a fairly successful run in the league. We were the first club to win every championship in every division we entered. Last year we ended up winning the league super elite championship. I don’t play anymore I stopped playing about four years ago because my shoulders were giving up on me. I turned 65 this year,” he said.
“Cricket is very big in Canada because of the India, Pakistan and Sri Lankan population. Before that the West Indies had dominated the league which is now dominated by Indians and Pakistanis.”
Benedict who follows the Sri Lankan team through the internet or on cricket channels that are available in Canada admitted that the game had changed radically from what it was some 30-40 years ago.
“The type of shots that the batsmen play today in my time, they would have been dropped from the team. It was more technique but now it is more about entertaining the crowd and scoring runs,” Benedict was of the view.
“It’s an evolvement of the game, if they continue this way I don’t know whether the interest of cricket would wane. Nobody cares about Test cricket anymore because of the short games 50 overs and 20 overs. When you watch on television the amount of crowd that is generated for the shorter game it is unbelievable.”
Asked how he would have bowled in modern day cricket Benedict replied, “I am not a guy with a lot of pace I depend on a lot of movement and the way the guys bat now it would have given me a lot more opportunities to get wickets than before. The time I played the guys were more concerned about technique and the right way to bat. It was more difficult during my time to get wickets than now. Even the bowlers out of the six balls they bowl three are half pitched and they get clobbered.”
Benedict who returns to Toronto on April 2 said, “I am taking back a lot of memories. Meeting up with all these friends, reminiscing with them and recalling nostalgic memories have made me feel young again.”
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