Lankans shake leg to spinner’s new tune

The video features a number of past and present Lankan cricketers,with Chandana as frontman,and was launched in Colombo two days before the Lankans’ opening fixture.

While insisting that the song was not a commercial venture,Chandana says,“The song is basically about wishing for our team’s success. A lot of my friends in the team in fact blasted me for not having released this as the official song for Sri Lanka’s World Cup campaign.”

Thananillata Enna was written — the lyrics provided by noted local journalist Kelum Shrimal — composed and recorded more than two-and-a-half years ago,reveals Chandana.

“I had always planned to record songs once my cricketing days were over. But I was too shy to make it public till a friend convinced me that the World Cup was the right platform to launch it,” explains Chandana,who appeared in 16 Tests and 147 ODIs.

Having never taken professional training to sing before,his voice was honed,and his notes mastered,during the singing sessions that the Sri Lankan team always indulged in during their bus-rides.

“Oh,Vaasy (Chaminda Vaas) would start it off always. But there were a number of good singers including myself in the mix like Sanath (Jayasuriya),Roshan (Mahanama) and Kumar (Dharmasena),” he says,and adds,“Murali couldn’t sing to save his life even though he was always eager to. He could only shout.”

“Younger guys like Suraj (Randiv),Malinga (Bandara) and Dammika (Prasad) are very talented. I am planning to do something with them as well,” he says. Sri Lankan bowling coach Champaka Ramanayake and former fast bowler Akalanka Gamage too have lent their voices as back-ups.

The Anu Malik fan suddenly breaks into one of his favourite Bollywood numbers — in melodious fashion,if the lyrics are a tad awry — before revealing his grand plan,of uniting cricketers from different countries and coming up with an official cricket-themed musical group.

“It would be great to find some sponsor in India,and if we could record a song in different languages sung only by cricketers and present it to the ICC,” says Chandana,who hopes to record the official theme song of the World T20 scheduled to be held in Sri Lanka next year.