Lankan slicers create history in Carrom World Cup
History making Sri Lanka Men’s and Women’s Carrom teams returned to Sri Lanka as World Champions and runners-up respectively at the 7th Carrom World Championships held in Birmingham, United Kingdom last weekend.
The significance of this historic win was that Sri Lanka defeated the reigning champions India 2-1 in the finals. In the South Asian and Asian championships Lankans always went down to the Indians whenever they met each other in the preliminary rounds or in the finals. Men who helped Sri Lanka to achieve this win was none other than skipper Chamil Cooray and Nishantha Fernando.
In the Team finals Cooray beat India’s R.M. Shankar 2-0 while Fernando scored a close 2-1 victory over D. Sandeep. In the third game India’s A. Riyaz was too strong for Lankan Sheriffddin to beat him2-0.
The Carrom World Championship is held every four years and this year’s edition in Birmingham was billed to be the largest competition held so far with the participation of over 20 countries. Switzerland, Canada, Italy, France, Germany, Poland, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, United States of America, Japan, Korea, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Maldives, Qatar Sri Lanka and Pakistan were some of the countries that participated.
Chamil Cooray became the only captain to lead any country for two World Cup championships in 2008 and 2016 and he is the only player to win the Swiss League championship on two consecutive occasions in 2014 at the 4th World Cup and at the just concluded 7th championship.
In the Women’s Team finals Sri Lanka women slicers were beaten by India.
In the Men’s and Women’s Doubles events Sri Lanka occupied the third place to win two bronze medals in addition to the Gold and Silver medals won as Men’s champions and runner-up in the Women’s Team finals.
Final Results:
Team events Men’s – Champions: Sri Lanka; 1st runner-up: India and 2nd runner-up: Maldives
Women’s – Champions: India, 1st runner-up: Sri Lanka, 2nd runner-up: Maldives
Men’s Singles: Sri Lanka secured 3 positions in the 1st ten world rankings – 5th position Nishantha Fernando, 7th position Chamil Cooray and 8th position Mohomed Shaheed
Women’s Singles: Sri Lanka secured 4 positions in the 1st ten world rankings – 4th Chalani Lakmali, 5th Roshita Joseph, 6th Yasika Rahubadda and 8th Arosha Wickremasinghe