Lionel – cricket teacher par-excellence
Lionel Mendis, one of the trail blazers in running organised cricket academies in Sri Lanka passed away after a brief illness.
He was a stalwart in coaching and was associated with Ananda College in the heyday of its cricket. Lionel together with his brother Nelson were always in the forefront of coaching school cricket, following the footsteps of some of the great cricketers and coaches who guided school teams at that time, like F.C De Saram, Gerry Gooneratne, Bertie Wijesinghe, Fairlie Dalpadado, A.V Fernando, Russel Heyn, H.I.K Fernando, just to name a few.
Coming from a background of cadet training, Lionel was known to be a strict disciplinarian and insisted on the highest possible standards of etiquette and behaviour from all his students. Having played the game, he was able to mix the skills of cricket with everything else that this sport stood for and produce complete players. He was responsible for fashioning out many a Sri Lankan Cricketer among whom the most illustrious was Arjuna Ranatunga.
Having retired from a very successful teaching and coaching career, the Nondescripts Cricket Club invited Lionel Mendis to set up and run the NCC Cricket Academy. Lionel also concentrated in successfully completing the requisite internationally recognised coaching qualifications and the NCC Cricket School was considered to be the benchmark amongst cricket coaching institutions in Sri Lanka. His methods of training were in fact also highly applauded by foreign cricketers when they visited NCC.
Lionel’s philosophy was that, he may not be able to make all his pupils play for Sri Lanka but he could fashion every student to be a perfect gentleman through cricket. That is why parents found the Academy to their liking.
Lionel loved working at the Academy and despite his short illness battled away and was regular at the nets.He took at least two teams of junior NCC cricketers to India each year and gave them an experience of touring and playing cricket. These tours went on unabated for many years. The parents were a great source of strength to Lionel and showed unbelievable support over the years.
The NCC and all those who were even remotely associated with him, will miss Lionel, who dutifully served his students and the club for over 35 years, with some children coming for training from foreign lands. May the turf lie lightly on this wonderful human being.