Sri Lankan admirer Tony Grieg no more
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- Created on Monday, 31 December 2012 11:35
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Tony Grieg, the former England captain and well-known cricket commentator and ardent supporter of Sri Lankan cricket died last Saturday after being diagnosed with lung cancer earlier this year. He was 66.
Greig had been initially diagnosed with bronchitis in May but his condition did not improve and tests following the World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka revealed that he had a wound on his right lung. On his return to Australia from the tournament, he had "a lot of fluid" drained from the lung and further testing revealed he had cancer
Anthony William Greig, was born on 6th October 1946 in Queenstown, South Africa. Greig qualified to play for England by virtue of his Scottish parentage, and was a former England Test cricketer turned commentator. He was a tall (6 feet 6 inches) batting all-rounder who bowled both medium pace and off spin. He captained the England team from 1975 to 1977 and also captained Sussex. Greig's younger brother, Ian, also played Test cricket.
He became a commentator following the end of his playing career. Tony stood by the Sri Lankan cricket team in many of the controversial issues and his impartial commentaries boosted the morale of our cricketers and our cricket fans. He was one of the international cricket personalities who were very much dearly to the Sri Lankan cricket team and who immensely admired the talents of our players such as Sanath Jayasuriya, Muttiah Muralitharan, Romesh Kaluvitharana, and many of the players in the current Sri Lankan team. He was responsible for inventing the Pet Names such as “Master Blaster” for Sanath Jayasuriya and "Little Kalu" for Kaluvitharane. He has played for 58 test matches and scored 3599 runs.
Sanath Jayasuriya, who was crowned by Tony as the “Master Blaster” expressing his deepest grievances on the death of this great cricketing personality said that the death of the veteran commentator was not just a loss for him personally but the whole of the country.
He said that Sri Lanka has lost a great man who always stood with Sri Lanka. He said that what Tony did for Sri Lanka in the early ‘90s no one else did. No one was talking about Sri Lanka then but he did that for us. He said Tony Greig loved our nation because of the hospitable people and the whole country liked him as well. For him, he said that Tony Grieg was a Sri Lankan.(niz)
