Ravi Shastri meets his biggest fan ahead of the second Test

The Men in Blue is all prepared to take on Sri Lanka in the second Test at SSC Colombo tomorrow, after registering a comprehensive victory in the series opener. However, during the first practice session, a rather familiar face was sitting in the stands. While the players were coming out of the dressing room at the Sinhalese Sports Club ground, they noticed the super fan of Sri Lanka cricket Percy Abeysekera sitting adjacent to the tunnel.

The Indian team gifted Percy an autographed bat on his 81st birthday a couple of days ago. The veteran Lankan fan still has enough energy left in him and didn’t fail to crack a joke at Ravi Shastri, his longtime friend, upon meeting him. The duo first met back in 1980 when Shastri was in his U19 days. And their friendship has stayed intact until today. Percy was on the ground to show Ravi an article on him which was carried in the newsletter released by the Sri Lankan Cricket board.

Percy feels Shastri is the right choice for Indian cricket

Talking about Shastri’s appointment at the helm, Percy has no doubts whatsoever in his mind that the Indian team will do well under him.

Lauding the Indian coach he said, “The greatest quality of Ravi is he will call a spade a spade as he is a very much straight forward guy. I admire him because of that. I don’t think India can get a better manager than Ravi.”

However, the old man was equally cynical and could not hide his emotions at the sorry state of the Sri Lanka cricket but is confident the present generation of cricketers can take their cricket forward.