Dear Diana Ma’am,
It is an absolute honour for you, but additionally a really proud second for ladies’s cricket in our nation and a proud second for India as an entire, that you’re being inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame. It is so well-deserved, you may have been a pioneer for ladies’s cricket in our nation.
Your contributions through the years have been immense. It just isn’t an excessive amount of to say that the sport wouldn’t be the place it’s in India with out all of your efforts.
From a private perspective, one of many largest regrets of my profession was that I by no means acquired to play towards you. Like many younger cricketers in India, I had grown up studying about you within the file books. Women’s cricket in India began in Mumbai in 1971 and also you have been there from the beginning.
We would examine your exploits, the way you led the workforce and have been so necessary to that facet. As a participant, your performances for the Indian cricket workforce within the Seventies and Nineteen Eighties have been legendary.
By 1997, you had retired from worldwide cricket, however have been nonetheless enjoying domestically. I keep in mind enjoying in a match towards Railways, however you didn’t play that recreation. I used to be simply so excited to get the chance to meet you. After the sport, I requested you what you considered my bowling and also you advised me concerning the onerous work it will take to make it as a world.
Five years later, I made my debut for India, and it was becoming that you just have been one of many nationwide selectors. From there, our relationship usually concerned you giving me recommendation after I was struggling, selecting out what I wanted to work on. Every time you made some extent, it will end up to be legitimate.
We didn’t at all times agree on every part however by the tip, we at all times ended up on the identical web page. And I at all times knew that you just had the identical purpose in thoughts, even when we generally had other ways of getting there.
You are a born chief who has at all times taken the duty in your shoulders and led from the entrance. Winning and shedding is part of life, however you’re taking the initiative and at all times strive to contribute to society, that’s the largest achievement of all.
I’m happy that your contributions to the sport have been acknowledged. It was well-deserved if you grew to become the primary girls’s cricketer to be awarded the Padma Shri in 2002, the civilian honour from the Indian authorities. In 1983, you have been awarded the Arjuna Award to recognise your sporting achievements, once more it was solely proper.
It was throughout my enjoying profession that I additionally began to perceive your impression on the sport in India – the way you had helped the event of the Indian Railway girls’s groups in 1984 that allowed girls’s cricketers to play sport and work on the identical time. Those administrative modifications have been transformational for cricket in our nation. They are testomony to how onerous you may have at all times fought for the sport.
Later, if you have been current on the BCCI board, you made additional enormous contributions. You had performed on the highest degree and stayed concerned in girls’s cricket so that you understood precisely what we wanted. We had a voice to give our recreation the help it wanted and we knew that we might flip to you for something.
That actually was one of many largest issues that has occurred to girls’s cricket in our nation. Everything you may have completed has been to assist girls’s cricketers. As a participant you probably did a lot, and since then, you may have labored tirelessly to assist the generations which have adopted.
From the teen studying about your performances after I dreamed of enjoying for India, to the skilled worldwide who had come to perceive every part you had achieved, you may have been an ever-present in my cricketing life.
Diana, I’m thrilled that you’re being inducted into the Hall of Fame, and I simply need to say thanks for every part you may have completed for cricket in our nation.
All the perfect,
Jhulan Goswami
To Aravinda Aiya (massive brother),
It is an honour to welcome you because the fourth Sri Lankan to be inducted to the ICC Hall of Fame. Though I can’t assist considering that in case you requested any of the three of us already there – myself, Sanga [Kumar Sangakkara] or Murali [Muttiah Muralitharan] – we’d all agree that it ought to have been you first.
We all grew up watching you and have been a part of a era impressed by what you achieved. I keep in mind the primary time I met you, accumulating your autograph after I was 9 or 10. You have been the brand new child within the Sri Lankan workforce then however earlier than lengthy, you have been our greatest batter. As younger youngsters, all of us checked out the way you went about enjoying and tried to mannequin our video games on it.
I had coaches who advised me to play a sure approach however you confirmed the significance of adapting. Whether it was your stance or your backlift, it felt such as you have been persistently altering – it made it troublesome to sustain! But it was an indication of your cricketing intelligence, one thing I might later be lucky to faucet into.
Of course, you’ll at all times be remembered for ‘that’ World Cup ultimate in 1996, if you took three wickets and scored the wonderful unbeaten century towards Australia. Aged 18, I had a giant ultimate of my very own that weekend, the final inter-school “big match” of my time at Nalanda College. Those two-day events have been massive offers and, on the Saturday, we should have had 4 or 5 thousand folks in. On Sunday, it was down to simply our dad and mom and the prefects! Everyone else in Sri Lanka, it appeared, was watching the ultimate you have been concerned in.
We completed our recreation early to watch the run chase and we have been glued to our TVs. When you walked in, we have been struggling on 23 for 2, however you could possibly see the dedication in your eyes. You had proven that within the semi-finals as properly, when have been in bother towards India earlier than you took the assault aside.
I’ll at all times keep in mind the way you took management within the ultimate. The drives, the flicks, the pulls, and the way you dealt with Shane Warne particularly throughout that game-changing partnership for the third wicket, it was unimaginable. We partied within the streets lengthy into the night time and I treasure these recollections.
You have been a participant who was a era forward of your time. Very aggressive and enjoying quick bowling higher than anybody in that Sri Lankan line-up. In Australia, they’d at all times strive to intimidate the Sri Lankans however they by no means might with you. You would at all times take them down. Seeing that innings within the ultimate towards a top quality Australian assault gave my era the idea that that is the model of cricket we want to play and that we’re able to. You gave us perception we might beat anybody on the planet.
The incontrovertible fact that inside a yr I used to be sharing a dressing room with you and the remainder of the World Cup winners was overwhelming. I used to be fully awestruck and on the primary day of my Test debut, I walked into the dressing room, the place everybody had their very own locations.
I had to wait round to see the place a spot got here up and I used to be fortunate – there was a chair two spots down from you. From that time onwards, I realised it is a man I needed to speak to about cricket. I had to ask you questions and decide your brains and from that time onwards, that’s what I did, hopefully with out you feeling badgered on a regular basis! To bat with you in in my first Test, after we made the world file rating of 952 for six towards India, was an honour.
I’ve a lot gratitude for the way in which you took me underneath your wing, having idolised you rising up. Sanga could have the numbers however in case you ask both of us, you’re the finest batter Sri Lanka has ever produced. Your impression on Sri Lankan cricket can’t be matched and also you confirmed us the way in which.
Being within the slip cordon alongside you was additionally an schooling. You would normally stand at first slip and we might discuss how the batter was shaping up. I keep in mind how you’ll describe a weak point and description how one in every of our bowlers might get him out. Vaasy [Chaminda Vaas] would carry the ball again in and it will occur, simply as you stated. It was fascinating.
I’m undecided your membership teammates at all times had as satisfying a time fielding with you, although. I nonetheless keep in mind how a lot I laughed when Sanga advised me the tales out of your time at Nondescripts collectively. Whether it was taking off your sneakers at first slip to guarantee another person would chase down something that went by the cordon or scoffing tea buns out of your pocket, it seems like there was by no means a uninteresting second. That’s one thing I can vouch for from our time within the dressing room collectively, although I quickly realized I might not find a way to sustain with you when it got here to partying!
When it got here to nationwide workforce obligation on the sector, although, there was by no means any doubting how critical you have been. We have been the primary era to actually develop up with that health tradition and I keep in mind you stressing its significance to us, with the sport continuously evolving.
You absolutely deserve your house within the ICC Hall of Fame and I’m very proud there at the moment are 4 of us flying the Sri Lankan flag in there. Your place in Sri Lankan cricketing folklore is assured and I can not thanks sufficient for the impression you may have had on my profession on and off the sector.
Congratulations my buddy.
Mahela
