Just over half a century ago, after Liverpool had clinched the third and last of the league titles they would win under his watch, Bill Shankly walked across the Anfield pitch to soak in the adulation pouring down from the stands. As they chanted his name and sang paeans in his honour, Shankly raised his arms as though acknowledging the Messiah status he enjoyed among the faithful. They responded by throwing scarves, bobble hats and anything else that was handy. As they fell in and around the goal at the Kop end, a policeman tried to kick them away. Shankly grabbed a scarf off the grass, draped it round his neck and rebuked the policeman. “That’s someone’s life,” he told him.
For Percy Abeysekera, who passed away after a long illness on October 30, at the age of 87, the Sri Lankan flag was his life. No one ever waved it more energetically or with more pride. Long before some started painting their faces and bodies and were anointed Superfans, Percy was one. For decades, you wouldn’t have been able to go to an important game in Sri Lanka, especially at the Premadasa, without Percy catching the eye. And it wasn’t just flag waving either. The Sri Lankan players would be sent to the middle with words of encouragement and praise, while visiting batters and bowlers would often be greeted with catchy rhymes and songs warning them of the consequences of tangling with the Lankan Lion.
All this was done without the slightest hint of malice, which is why so many players, past and present, adored “Uncle Percy”. Rohit Sharma even made the time during the recent Asia Cup to go and meet him as his house, knowing that Percy was too unwell to take up his once-customary vantage point near the boundary rope.
For those journalists who went and met him during games, he was also a brilliant raconteur. Percy had a story about pretty much every luminary that had played on the island. Behind the wisecracks, there was a mind that loved literature and cared deeply about Sri Lanka’s cricket history. Most touring journalists became aware of M Sathasivam – Sri Lanka’s greatest batsman of the pre-Test era – and the ‘ammi kallu [grinding stone] murder case’ through Percy. He was also fond of walking you through his memories of watching Sir Garfield Sobers, Neil Harvey, Sunil Gavaskar and so many other legends of the game.
He was at his most vocal as Sri Lankan cricket came of age in the mid-1990s, and then built on that in the 2000s after a small hiccup at the 1999 World Cup. The team of Sangakkara, Jayawardene, Murali and Fernando gave him as much pleasure as de Silva, Ranatunga, Gurusinha and Vaas had a decade earlier. There was no prouder fan. At the same time, the filth that often masquerades as patriotism on social media these days was anathema to him. If someone played great cricket to beat Sri Lanka – whether it was the late Martin Crowe who gave him a man of the match award, or Sachin Tendulkar, whom he named a grandchild after – Percy would be the first to acknowledge it. He was a cheerleader like no other, but he lacked the meanness of spirit to be one-eyed and parochial.
After being arrested in Hobart for trespassing on the field of play, Percy charmed his way out of the police station by reciting Donne and Shakespeare and regaling the law-enforcement officers with anecdotes about Sir Donald Bradman and others. By the time he walked to freedom, they were lining up to take pictures with him.
He was that kind of man, a cricket fan like no other. Sri Lanka, and the sport of cricket itself, is poorer without him.