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,
Jack Fingleton Jack Fingleton John "Jack" Henry Webb Fingleton, OBE (28 April 190822 November 1981) was an Australian cricketer who was trained as a journalist and became a political and cricket commentator after the end of his playing career. A stubborn opening batsman known for his dour defensive approach, he scored five Test centuries, representing Australia in 18 Tests between 1932 and 1938. He was also known for his involvement in several cricket diplomacy incidents in his career, accused of leaking the infamous verbal exchange between Australian captain Bill Woodfull and English manager Plum Warner during the acrimonious Bodyline series, and later