Lankan Cricketers and the War Paint

I don’t know if this is something many others out there have been wondering about but it is something I am curious about. I was chatting the a friend the other day (you know who you are) and this topic came up randomly as it does and she suggested I blog about it.

The questions are what is that white crap the Sri Lankan cricketers apply on their face? Why do they do it? or the most important question for me is why is it applied in different patterns/areas each time? - apart from Lasith Malinga’s white lips but then he has a Lankan afro from ‘95 with a ‘07 twist to it.

“It’s sun block” is the obvious answer everybody is thinking. But then why is it white? Surely colourless sun block is available. Also why do they apply it differently on different days? The answer surely cannot be “cos it looks cool” unlike Chandarpauls war paint our boys seem to have just rubbed it on. And Sanga [Kumar Sangakkara] looks like a prat after only a few overs when he has smudged it by mixing sweat into it.

Sun Block???? half these boys used to run around in the sun all day somewhere down south most likely with no hat, no sunglasses, no t-shirt, and no slippers. Ah! but may be if we pay attention this half ain’t the ones who do all this!! haha

As interested as I am to find out the answer to this (and I will soon) none of this matters and I honestly don’t give two coconuts about it. As long as they play well as a team, Mali [Lasith Malinga] keeps getting them in-swinging yorkers, and Sanga keeps flicking the bails off during the 0.5 of a second the batsman has his foot in the air, as these are examples of what keeps us backing this Lankan team through thick and thin.