Sri Lanka takes on Chinese Taipei on September 7
Sri Lanka has just completed their training for the Mission Foods Asian Netball Championships which begins on September 7 at the Singapore Sports Hub. Sri Lanka has a tall order at the ten nation competition as they finished runners-up at the contest held in 2012 to Singapore. Sports
The Sri Lanka Nertball team with President Lakshmi Victoria
lovers are hoping that the island nation will bag the championship trophy at this year’s contest and show the island nation that cricket is not the only game they are good at.
Sri Lanka has been drawn into Group B with Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Brunei, Chinese Taipei and Myanmar and will take on Chinese Taipei in their opening game on September 7 in the day’s last game at 7 pm.
Group A consists of Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Japan and Vietnam. Group B is made of Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Brunei, Chinese Taipei and Myanmar.
Pictures by Mangala Weerasekera
The Asian Netball Championships is the most prestigious netball championships in Asia. The event is held once in every four years. Singapore are the defending champions and Sri Lanka are the runners-up. This year’s championships is the most competitive as it is the qualifier for the 2015 World Championships.
According to Lorna Campbell, who is in charge of the tournament in Singapore this competition is a buildup to the SEA Games in 2015 and Netball Singapore looks to continue the strong growth of sports engagement in schools through netball.
According to the President of the Sri Lanka Netball Federation Lakshmi Victoria, Sri Lanka has a strong
Sri Lanka Netball skipper Sashikala Samarasinghe
chance of winning the championships. “I too have played a key role in the Singapore competition because it was under my guidance that Vietnam is taking part in the contest and I am pushing for Afghanistan too to take part in the competition next time”. Sri Lanka will take on Vietnam on September on Monday (September 9) in the eighth game of the contest.
The knock-out round will commence on September 13 and the finals will be held on Sunday (September 14).
The Sri Lanka team will be led by Sashikala Samarasinghe with Gayani Dissanayake as the Deputy Skipper. The rest of the team will be: Kumarin De Silva, Tharjini Shivalingam, Mareesha Fernando, Chaturangi Jayasooriya, Thisala Algama, Deepika Abeykoon, Darshika Abeywickrama, Thilini Waththegedera, Nouchalee Rajapaksha, Kanchana Jayaweera, Yamuna Sandamali (Asst. Coach). Hayacinth Wijesinghe (Consultant Technical), Yasa Ramachandra (Manager/Consultant Coach).