Sri Lanka became a test playing nation in 1981, thus becoming the eighth country to achieve that status. We all would remember the radio commentary in the early and middle eighties (when Sri Lanka was not a major force to reckon with). These commentators would be ferried at tax payers expense by All India Radio (and Doordarshan sometimes). They would then go and pronounce the names of the players (many of whom went on to become legends later) completely wrong. Thus ossifying the erroneous pronunciation in the psyche of an entire generation of Indians. And all they had to do was ask any local journalist (or even the players themselves). Remember these players had not yet become stars and were easily accessible. We are talking of the early 80s. Even Kapil Dev and co were easily accessible. But they did not bother. They used logic to pronounce names. Some of these commentators were even awarded a Padma Shri later on!
You need some level of knowledge to even identify mediocrity. That was so in the 80s. Now it has become a pandemic.
Enough of my rant. This player is famous even now because he went on to become an international match referee. So you still see him on TV screens at times.
He played for almost a decade and was even the captain of the Sri Lankan team for a while. So what do you know his name as ranjan madhugalE or रंजन मधुगले - right? Wrong!
Our mediocre mediapersons just appropriated his name to the nearest sounds they knew (madhu is honey and gale is necks) and voila! However the correct pronunciation is
ranjan maDugalla
रंजन मडुगल्लअ
Huge difference, don't you think. What if I told you that the names of 90% of the Sri Lankan cricketers in India are mispronounced - even the super popular ones like Ranatunga, Malinga, Atapattu and Muralitharan. Will feature them later.
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