Amidst differences the preparations will go on
The 9th Edition of the Asian Netball championship is scheduled to be worked-off on September 2014 in Singapore. Sri Lanka national netball team is undergoing residential training for the past three months with a fifteen member pool from where the final twelve members will be selected.
The Sri Lanka netball team continued training despite the change of coaching staff - File pic
Before the Sri Lankan lasses take wing to Singapore in September, a short tour of Australia was planned where they will play a series of friendly matches. But due to the present climatic conditions in Australia the tour had to be called off and it will be replaced with a series of matches from teams from New Zealand with the blessings of Margaret Foster, the New Zealand coach who was here in Sri Lanka as a consultant coach.
With over three months away from the mega event in Singapore Sri Lanka’s national coach Deepthi de Alwis was served with a temporary suspension notice with five charges. She was to be replaced by a Technical Advisor — the coach who was involved in the game as a player and as a coach for over fourteen years and had led the national team in three Asian Games and three World Cups. The proudest moment of her career according to her was — under her captaincy in the 1995 World Cup, Sri Lanka was ranked 15th after beating Republic of Ireland, Scotland and Bermuda.
First of the four allegations against her was that the present coach was not getting the services of the center court. The second, was not getting the shooting and defence coaches. The last was that she was not using services of the assistant coach. These were made on the request of the interim committee members. The last allegation was playing an injured player. This particular player’s medical test conducted by the Medical Unit of the Ministry of Sports was within the best five results, according to the coach.
When the Chairperson of the Interim Committee Lashmi Victoria was contacted she admitted that a temporary suspension notice was served and that they have not taken a final decision. When asked about the three sectional coaches she said that this was an idea she had in mind but due to various reasons it was delayed. Speaking to the Sunday Times earlier this month the m/s Victoria stated that she was happy to get the services of the senior players for this tournament and that she is satisfied with way how the present practice sessions were being conducted. She also said that the main target of the Interim Committee was to see Sri Lanka netball to do well in all international tournaments and to be highly recognised by the world netball fraternity.
During her time in office Sri Lanka took part in Junior Asian tournament, 5 Nations tournament in Singapore and Hong Kong which enabled the up and coming youngsters to gain national recognition. Development programmes and seminars for coaches and umpires were conducted. Organising Vanitha Vasana, Inter Association and Senior Nationals are some of the projects that were conducted in high notes during the period of this interim committee.
As the Asian Netball Championship is round the corner it is the duty of every official involved in netball to see that the administration problems will not disturb the concentration, dedication and the application of the players and let them to focus their attention only in winning and becoming Asia’s number one nation in netball.