BY NEVILLE DE SILVA

on Masada, the rock fortress on the way to the Dead Sea.

With a Roman legion led by General Flavius Silva ( no ancestor of mine I assure you) who had laid siege to the rock fortress for many a day, all ready to breach the walls in the morning, the 900odd zealots chose to end it all without falling captive to the Roman oppressors. Two women and five children, who had hidden inside, lived to tell the tale.

Naturally the hara-kiri of the Famous Five bears little historical significance or the dramatic denouement of the mass act atop Masada. The selection committee, one gathers, is still on its feet like Ravi K and Dasa R unlike the brave zealots who died within a “hoo kiyana” distance of the Dead Sea.

One might also recall the mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana almost 40 years ago. But to equate that cult massacre to the sacrifice of the Famous Five in the name of cricket, country and culture would be to denigrate last week’s act with all its nationalistic ardour.

Over the years one has been led to wonder whether our cricketers and administrators take their cue from the antics of our politicians or the other way round.

The events mentioned above happened in Sri Lanka so close to each other that one is inclined to look deeper at any possible link between our politics and cricket than casually dismiss it with the disdain that Donald Trump reserves for the media and any of the 300 million Americans who seriously believe that his propensities should lead him closer to the loony bin than the Oval Office..

Any alien watching us from somewhere in outer space and seeing the active bottle throwers in Pallakele and the varied demonstrators in