On the podium, set up on the periphery of the Sinhalese Sports Club Ground, stood a podgy, swarthy-complexioned man in a suit, almost obscured by a huge garland of roses.

A pair of Oakley sunglasses covered his eyes. And yet, as he stood there, ramrod straight and unmoving, listening to the various eulogies, a river of tears flowed down his cheeks, dripping unheeded onto the front of his suit.

It was perhaps fitting that Arjuna Ranatunga bade farewell in a wash of tears -- for throughout his 18 year long international career, it was his impish smile that was a perennial trademark.

His passing from the international stage marks a changing of the guard -- Ranatunga, then 18, debuted in the first ever Test Sri Lanka played, in 1982 (scoring Lanka's first ever half-century in that game), and since then, his fortunes and that of the turbulent island nation have been closely interlinked.

It was the dazzling strokeplay of Roy Dias that first turned my attention towards Sri Lankan cricket, and on the rare occasions I got to see him bat, I thought Ranatunga was Roy's left-handed alter ego. Both brought to their game an impishness, a joie de vivre, that seemed to encapsulate the Lankan cricketing spirit to perfection.

But it was only during the 1995-1996 Lankan tour of Australia that I really began to take notice of the man. And that, not for his deeds with the bat, but with the way he handled the no-balling and public humiliation of Muthaiah Muralitharan.

I remember two different occasions when Indian national stars, in course of conversation, rued the fact that the captain of the national team never backs his players up. On one occasion, in response to a question, a senior player told me, "Look, when I go out to bat, there are many things I think of. As a player, I know what the team situation is and what I am required to do. Then, there are the instructions given by my captain. But when I get out there, I ask myself, what will please the selectors, and I play accordingly."

Isn't that unfair to the captain, I asked him.

"Maybe, but why should I care?" he shot back. "It is this way -- the captain tells me to take risks and up the scoring rate. So I go out and throw my bat around and if I am unlucky, I get out. And the next time the selectors meet, they drop me! A captain should stand up for his players, he should tell the selectors that the player played as per his instructions -- but though I have played under three different captains, not one of them has supported his players in this way."

It is against this background that I took notice of, and admired, Ranatunga. He stood four-square behind Muralitharan, giving back as good as his team got from the Australian media and the public. In fact, so in-your-face was his attitude, so determined was he to come to the rescue of his embattled player, that pretty soon, Muralitharan was forgotten, and the concentrated venom of the Aussies was directed at himself.

He took it all. And he smiled that cherubic smile.

It is a quality to be prized, this ability to stand up for, and by, his players. I remember that other occasion, when a new sports minister and a new bunch of selectors attempted, with more energy than sense, to sweep clean. Thus, they subjected the Lankan squad to a hasty fitness test, and dropped Aravinda D'Silva, then in his prime as a batsman, on the grounds that he couldn't run the 100 metres in the specified time.

That was nonsensical -- and Ranatunga promptly resigned his captaincy. The Lankan selectors sent the team out under Roshan Mahanama, but soon, Ranatunga proved his point, and returned -- with mate Aravinda firmly beside him.

Memory flashes forward to a press conference just before the 1996 World Cup. Ranatunga sat there, handling questions with his usual aplomb. One of us asked, who do you think will win the Cup? "I can't say, that is why we are playing, to find out," Ranatunga grinned in response. "But I think India, Pakistan, South Africa and Sri Lanka all have a very good chance."

What, the questioner persisted, not Australia, who are being hailed as favourites? "Oh," said Ranatunga, a mischievous twinkle in his eye belying the choir-boy innocence of his features, "I don't think so. You see, the World Cup is played with neutral umpires!"

It was a shrewd shaft, delivered with a flair the Aussies, themselves past-masters of the put-down, would have envied. We laughed. He sat there, in front of us, benign as a Buddha.

Later, during the same media conference, talked turned to the prospects for spin. "Anil Kumble and Muthaiah Muralitharan, these are the dangermen, they can exploit these conditions brilliantly," Ranatunga said. But what of Warne, he was asked. "Hmmmm... Warne is okay, he is a decent bowler, but he is not much use against sub-continental teams."

That was a daring remark to make. And it was promptly played up in the media. And the Aussies as promptly retaliated, with stinging statements in their own turn. And then came the final -- and I can still recall, as though it happened yesterday, the cheeky ebullience of Ranatunga at the crease as he, with a nudge here, a prod there, a push elsewhere, milked Warne for runs and, once his message was well and truly driven home, suddenly flashed into aggression, lifting the leg-spinner over the top of the infield to bring his side to the threshold of a historic win.

That was Ranatunga -- never afraid to step right into the middle of any controversy going, ever ready to back himself and his team against the best. And those two traits together were responsible for his biggest contribution to Lankan cricket -- he gave the team, and the nation, a sense of pride, of belonging; a feeling that they were the equal of the best.

Many a more hyped captain has accomplished far less.

I remember the time, a couple of years back, when Dean Jones came to Mumbai on a personal visit. We caught up at the bar in the Oberoi, and the chat over beer quite naturally revolved around cricket. Sledging somehow worked its way into the conversation, and Deano at the time told me, "Tell you what, mate, there are two men even the Aussies know better than to sledge too much. One is Viv (Richards), the other is that Ranatunga. Viv'll murder you with his bat, if you rile him. And Ranatunga, he will smile, and every smile will feel like a needle in your skin...."

I thought of all this, as I watched the tears stream down the face of the man they called the Smiling Buddha.

And as he finally stepped off the dais, too emotionally overcome to say more than a few token words, there was a lump in my throat.

A lump formed of the realisation that I was seeing the last of one of the great characters of contemporary cricket. A man among men -- and there aren't too many of them around, these days, which makes Ranatunga all the more precious.

Prem Panicker

Mail Cricket Editor