Dharshan (Men), Chalani (Women) Top Slicers at WP Championship
At the Western Province (WP) Carrom Championship 2016 concluded at the Carrom Federation of Sri Lanka (CFSL) headquarters, Kohuwala Chamil Dharshan Cooray and Chalani Lakmali Liyanage emerged Champions in the Men’s and Women’s categories respectively. This highly contested event was organised on the instructions of the WP Ministry of Sports & Education and conducted by the CFSL. This initiative taken for the first time in the Sport’s history, was to select players for the National Sports Festival (NSF) to represent WP, as Carrom is the latest addition to the NSF.
Over 225 Slicers took part, representing Colombo, Gampaha and Kalutara districts. Outstation Slicers gained much needed experience by competing with the top ranked players, which was evident in the preliminaries, where ranked players had to fight hard for their wins. The Championship commenced on July 30 and went on for 3 days. The Men’s and Women’s finals featured National players. In the Men’s final, Chamil Cooray defeated reigning World Cham Nishantha Fernando 2-0 (25/9, 25/18). Fernando failed to find his touch in this important clash, as Cooray played a sensible game without giving any openings to his opponent to settle down.
Chalani clinched the Women’s Championship with a comfortable victory over Joseph Roshita who drew first blood to win 25/21. However, Chalani Lakmali came back strongly with some fine slicing to win the 2nd and 3rd sets with ease at 25/1, 25/9. Mohamed Shaheed and Detumi Nomaya came 3rd in the Men’s and Women’s segments respectively. There were 7 ‘Slams’ reported by 6 players during the tournament, headed by Nishantha Fernando (2), while Brindley Wickremasinghe, Hasitha Anuruddha, Dineth Dulakshana and Suraj Maduwantha had 1 each. The Medals and Certificates awards ceremony was held under the patronage of Chief Guest, WP Sports Director- I.G.I.T. Ratnayake, along with CFSL Officials, Thumula Naotunne, Amitha Wickremasinghe, Daya Widanagamage, Sunanda Kodagoda and Senior Umpires Jagath Suraweera and Kamala Abeyweera.
The following Slicers were selected to represent WP at the NSF:
Men: Chamil Cooray, Nishantha Fernando, Mohamed Shaheed, Brindley Wickremasinghe, M. Sherifdeen, A.P.G.R. Ravishanka and Suraj Maduwantha Women: Chalani Lakmali Liyanage, Joseph Roshita, Detuni Nomaya, Maduka Dilshani Ranaweera, Rebecca Delrine, Sadini Nirasha and Shashika Sandamali.
Women's team
Men's team