History of cricket in Sri Lanka the All-Ceylon and native Ceylonese teams they played against, but they easily defeated a European team, thus proving that the standard of the Ceylonese players exceeded that of the Europeans. For many years first-class cricket was restricted to games by Ceylon against visiting touring teams, notably the English and Australian teams who used the island as a stopover on the long voyage to each other's country. Douglas Jardine's "bodyline" team was there in 1932–33. The first visit by a New Zealand team was in October 1937 to play a one-day match in Colombo. In the aftermath of World War II,
Ray Lindwall with the Australian cricket team in England in 1948 Don Tallon one-handed, at full stretch to his left. Lindwall described the catch as one of the best he had ever seen. In his post-lunch spell, Lindwall bowled a spell of 8.1 overs during which he took 5/8; he totalled 6/20 in 16.1 overs. Bradman described the spell as "the most devastating and one of the fastest I ever saw in Test cricket". Fingleton, who played against the "Bodyline" attack in 1932–33, said "I was watching a man almost the equal of Larwood [the "Bodyline" spearhead] in pace ... Truly a great bowler". O'Reilly said that Lindwall's "magnificent performance must