Pastel skies, packed stands and WhatsApp chats: In Colombo, cricket is everywhere again
On Friday night, Colombo splashed a warm, pastel sunset across the western sky as Pakistan's men trained under lights. On Saturday, a rainbow twinkled into existence at twilight, as India's evening training at Khettarama began. Colombo is far from the biggest metro among this World Cup's destinations, but it is the only city boasting two separate venues. This week, in the lead-up to India vs Pakistan, it has been the centre of the cricketing universe. The city, and its elements, have reveled in it.
The long decline of the Sri Lanka men's team's fortunes over a dozen years had seemed to take the shine off Sri Lanka's once-voracious appetite for cricket, if we're being brutally honest. This week has felt like a shot of adrenaline. The bus halts are alive with World Cup chatter, in restaurants guests wave in vain at waiters too glued to the live game, pubs are running cricket-themed quizzes, knockoff jerseys are flying off pavement stalls, and the greatest 2026 indicator of a buzz around town is happening: the Whatsapp groups are going wild.
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There are "shall we go for some of these small, small matches?" type. chats happening everywhere, plus many others, spanning an array of human emotions, which cricket is so adept at evoking. There is the appreciative ("aney the SSC looks nice under lights, no?"), the nostalgic ("it feels like the 2011 World Cup again"), the hopeful ("machan do you have any India-Pakistan tickets?"), the scintillated ("wowww that's a crazy catch"), and the objectifying ("these cricketers all have nice butts, no?").
And because this is Sri Lanka at this moment in time, there is also the ubiquitous criticism of the home team ("the way our buggers are playing they could easily lose to Zimbabwe, men"). There is plenty of negativity about the national men's side, who are yet to seriously prove themselves at this event. What there isn't right now though is apathy. And nothing kills support for a sport like that.
The two World Cup venues, about five kilometres as the crow flies, couldn't feel more disparate. The Sinhalese Sports Club ground is located in Colombo 7 - Cinnamon Gardens - the poshest old-money neighbourhood in the country, with its broad tree-lined avenues, vast green spaces, and stately colonial-era administrative buildings. Like it's neighbourhood, the venue itself is not without an enlarged sense of self. What is also inescapable is that it is the perfect venue to upgrade with floodlights, the ground so centrally-located and so accessible that commuters could pop by to catch a T20 or the second innings of an ODI after work gets out. It's first match under lights -
Khettarama (you may call it by its official name the R. Premadasa Stadium if you prefer, but Khettarama is better-understood by Colombo residents on the street) by contrast, rests in the lap of one of city's poorer neighbourhoods. The lanes are narrow, the bylanes are noodle-thin, shops, and awnings, and abutments, and hastily-built annexes crowd in ad hoc fashion around the stadium's perimeter. Also in the near vicinity are low-cost high-rise apartments to house residents previously situated in informal settlements.
If the SSC and its surrounds, which feature several other first-class grounds, give a sense of Sri Lankan cricket's scale, Khettarama is the ground in which you can best glimpse Sri Lanka cricket's soul. When the stands are heaving, and the papare is cascading down from the top tier, and the pop hits are being bellowed, and the kids are cackling as another spin choke takes hold - this is when Sri Lankan cricket feels its most dangerously addictive, because there is no vibe quite like this vibe. Northern Colombo deserves this front row seat as much as anyone.
Colombo is a city so absurdly rich with cricket that in this World Cup, a third great Colombo venue is going unused - the P Sara Oval, where Don Bradman and his invincibles once played, and which having hosted Sri Lanka's inaugural Test, remains one of the best result venues on the planet. This World Cup has not pulled this ground into its gravity, but for many old souls, there is no better place to watch a Test.
There is of course the argument that this city is too dense with cricket - that if this mad concentration of cricket grounds and facilities had been better spread around the island, Sri Lankan cricket would harness the island's talents more effectively than it has. But that's an argument for later, among ourselves, when the world is not in town. Right now, the city is being the best version of itself. The air is electric. And Colombo feels like one of the world's great cricketing cities.