ON AND OFF THE PITCH

Nicholas Brookes’s treatise on the history of Sri Lankan cricket and iconic Pakistani seamer Wasim Akram’s memoir throw light on our favourite game as it’s played by our closest rivals

Sri Lanka has been the second favorite cricket team of most non-Lankan fans. The classic and the post-modern co-exist: for every Mahela Jayawardene there is a Sanath Jayasuriya, every Chaminda Vaas has a Lasith Malinga. Occasionally the two strains merge in one player, as with Kumar Sangakkara. Above all, there is Muttiah Muralitharan, claimer of the most international wickets, a bowler of intrigue and passion, of whom it might be said—adapting what an English writer said of Ranjitsinhji—that he never bowled a Christian ball in his life.