Melbourne felicitates World T-20 champions
The Victoria Cricket Foundation — the SLC representative in Melbourne is now headed by David Cruse replacing its longtime head Dr. Quintus de Silva. This was revealed by SLC’s senior Vice President Mohan de Silva who headed the Lankan delegation to their felicitation to the Lankan team.
De Silva said “This is the first occasion that the Lankan team is in Australia after winning the ICC T-20 title in Bangladesh last year and they thought this is the first best opportunity for them to honour the World T-20 Champions.”
Speaking further de Silva said that around three years ago Sri Lanka Cricket brought all the overseas representatives under its wing and they have such associations in England, Dubai and three in Australia – Victoria, Sydney and Adelaide. He added that they are also in the process forming an Association in New Zealand.
The felicitation was followed by a social evening and the proceeds of that would be utilized for the development of the game in the North and the East of the country.
The President of the newly formed Victoria Cricket Foundation will be David Cruse with Bertie Ekanayake and Malik Zaveer taking over as the Vice Presidents. De Silva explained that the rest of the committee will comprise former Sri Lanka cricketers like Saliya Ahangama and Duleep Samaraweera and former SSC cricketer Kapila Jayasuriya and a few others.
De Silva also added Ahangama will handle the task of spearheading a programme to get promising young cricketers from Sri Lanka to Australia and training them not only in cricket, but all aspects of being involved international cricket. He further said “In the past we sent a few cricketers here for training, but those efforts have been in vain. Either the cricketers sent here for training settled down in Australia or found other vocations once returning to the island. I am aware that the most prolific England batsman currently Joe Root and a few international cricketers benefitted from such programmes and we want our programme to be as such.”