ABSTRACT
One of the most notable trends in contemporary Australian sport has been an increased focus on sporting contacts with Asia. It is also a topic that has began to receive attention from sports historians. One aspect of this relationship that has been overlooked, however, has been sporting contacts with Sri Lanka. A sporting relationship between the two countries is generally only seen to have emerged in the late- 1970s, and then only in one sport, cricket. This overlooks the fact that before the advent of air travel, Ceylon (as it was then known) was a common stopping-off point for ships to and from the UK. As a consequence, the vast majority of Australian sporting tours to Britain in the pre-World War Two era involved a stop on the island, and a vast number of matches were played there by Australian teams from a variety of sports. Far from being a peripheral player in sporting contacts, Ceylon provided Australia with both its earliest, and most extensive, set of links with Asia. Given the number of these sporting contacts, and the time scale involved, This hitherto neglected relationship provides a valuable case-study of Australia's emerging sporting relationship with Asia. This article analyses these contacts, paying particular attention to questions of race and racial identity.
