Antony Ralph Marinon Opatha (5 August 1947 – 11 September 2020) was a Sri Lankan

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

er. A right-arm medium pace bowler, he played five One Day Internationals at the

1975 It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe. Events January * January 1 - Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...

and 1979 Cricket World Cups. Educated at St. Peter's College, Colombo he joined the Royal Ceylon Volunteer Air Force in 1968. He had played for his college cricket team and went on to play for the air force cricket team until 1977. He first played for Ceylon in 1971 and was a member of the Sri Lankan teams playing in the World Cups in England in 1975 and 1979. He later played club cricket in Ireland for one season in 1979 and was offered the post of coach of the Holland team. As player/manager of the rebel tour to South Africa in 1982–83 in defiance of the sporting ban against the

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

state, he and the other tourists received a lifetime ban from international cricket. In September 2018, he was one of 49 former Sri Lankan cricketers felicitated by Sri Lanka Cricket, to honour them for their services before Sri Lanka became a full member of the

International Cricket Council The International Cricket Council (ICC) is the world governing body of cricket. Headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, its members are 108 national associations, with 12 Full Members and 96 Associate Members. Founded in 1909 as the ' ...

(ICC).

References

External links

Cricinfo article on Tony Opatha
1947 births 2020 deaths Sri Lankan cricketers Sri Lanka One Day International cricketers All-Ceylon cricketers Cricketers at the 1975 Cricket World Cup Cricketers at the 1979 Cricket World Cup Sri Lankan Air Force airmen Alumni of St. Peter's College, Colombo Sri Lankan cricket coaches Cricketers from Colombo {{SriLanka-cricket-bio-1940s-stub