Its in the scorecards

Mathew,we are told,played just four Test matches for his country,but information on him is difficult to come by. And by the time WG how Karunasena yearns to be called by those initials gets down to documenting Mathews career,the cricketer has disappeared. WG is an obsessive biographer,and he tracks down high school coaches,fellow cricketers on the national team,a lady who claims to be Mathews sister,anybody who can offer a fragment of Mathews life story. What he gets is not always reliable,and to state how unreliable it all really can be would be giving away the ending.

However,what Karunatilaka manages is to send you to the computer to search down all the summaries of matches Mathew supposedly participated in. And even as Karunatilaka pulls off not just the best novel on cricket,but simply one of the best novels you are likely to read for quite a while,his book invites heavy note-taking. It almost becomes a side-sport separate from the main themes of the book. You want to find out Karunatilaka. So you tick off all the matches and factoids he refers to,so that they can be fact-checked later. Did it really happen so? Did it really happen that December 26,1989 was the first Boxing Day of the last nineteen years in Melbourne that did not feature a Test match? Well,the cricket archives do show it as an ODI featuring Sri Lanka. And Karunatilaka slips Mathew into the story by bringing him on as a substitute fielder for an injured Ranatunga and his attempt to field the ball off a David Boon cover drive is blown up enough to reflect the doubts expressed by the experts at Sri Lankas right to be in the big league. (Incidentally,Boon was caught that day by a young debutant,Sanath Jayasuriya,though his contribution of three runs to the total had not yet announced the manner in which hed change the role of the opening batsman in one-day matches).

Mathew also lurks on the periphery when on January 23,1999 Ranatunga took the extreme step of threatening to take his team off the field when Muttiah Muralitharan is called for throwing. Says WG: I never felt prouder of Arjuna… Not even when he lifted the Cup in 1996… Maybe this is our turning point,the moment when we recapture the spirit of 1996. His friend wonders whether Mathews career might have turned out differently if hed had a captain to defend him so.

And as Karunatilaka keeps getting his score-cards right,another side-game begins. Could it be that he knows something that the rest of us do not. So you search some more,for scraps from old,archived match reports that may show us Mathew or someone like him. Thereon,it becomes obsessive: you begin to investigate even those matches Karunatilaka does not refer to. And even as you understand why Sri Lankas Australia tour before their 1996 World Cup victory was such a pivot for their cricket,you are really asked to acknowledge that a single tournament cannot be seen in isolation. Its measure is to be had by taking into account all that preceded it and much of what may follow,and how.

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