Club Cricket Conference

Thursday, 21st November 2024

On-field death shocks British Tamils Cricket League

 

By Charles Randall

7 July 2015


The British Tamils Cricket League has been stunned by the death of a 24 year-old Sri Lankan who was hit by the ball while batting during a match in Surrey last Sunday (July 5).

Bavalan Pathmanathan, playing for Manipay Parish Sports Club in a Tamils Division Three match at Long Ditton, was struck on the chest and collapsed. Attempts by air ambulance paramedics failed to revive him after an apparent heart attack.

Announcing his death, the League expressed deepest condolences to Pathmanathan’s family and friends, a message whole-heartedly endorsed here by the Club Cricket Conference. He was a former student of Hartley College in Jaffna.

The Manipay Parish club was established in 2008 by a group of friends who used to live in and around Manipay, a small township in the Jaffna peninsula, and they built a significant community club in south London under the chairmanship of Prabhaharan Parameswaran.

The outpouring of grief around the world in 2014 at the death of the Australia left-hander Philip Hughes, struck on the neck while batting in Sydney, underlined the shocking nature of an on-field death of players in their prime, fortunately a very rare occurrence.