History of the Sri Lankan cricket team the long voyage to each other's country. Douglas Jardine's infamous "bodyline team" was there in 1932–33. Occasionally, teams representative of Ceylon played matches abroad, especially in India. English team Sir Julien Cahn's XI visited Ceylon in 1936–37. The India national cricket team visited Ceylon in April 1945 and played one first-class match against Ceylon at the Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu Stadium in Colombo. The match was drawn on account of bad weather. India's team was a strong one captained by Vijay Merchant and including notable players such as Shute Banerjee, Mushtaq Ali, Lala Amarnath, Vijay Hazare and Rusi Modi. Several Australian teams
Bodyline insisted his tactic was not designed to cause injury and that he was leading his team in a sportsmanlike and gentlemanly manner, arguing that it was up to the Australian batsmen to play their way out of trouble. It was subsequently revealed that several of the players had private reservations, but they did not express them publicly at the time. Following the 1932–33 series, several authors, including many of the players involved, released books expressing various points of view about bodyline. Many argued that it was a scourge on cricket and must be stamped out, while some did not see