Innovative school cricket system to hit the turf from April
Jayantha Seneviratne, a leading cricket stalwart - FIle pic
The streamlining of Inter-school cricket under the Education Department’s ‘Schools Cricket National Operation Plan’ (SCNOP) will get under way in April this year. First to hit the turf are the Under (U)-15 and U-17 seasons from April, according to its programme head – well known cricket administrator and former national cricketer Jayantha Seneviratne.
As a prelude to the programme, all school coaches will attend a symposium in mid February under former national cricket captain Mahela Jayawardena, along with SCNOP chief coach Roger Wijesuriya, who is also a former national cricketer and a former national U-19 coach, to familiarise them on how they would go ahead with the programme.
Explaining the programme, Seneviratne told the Sunday Times, “Our aim is to streamline our national cricket and help elevate it, so that it would be competitive at the highest level with other top cricketing nations. Once the two junior programme’s are on the road, the U-19 segment will come under our banner from the 2018-19 season, which will get under way in the third term of 2018.
“However, we intend to encourage U-13 and U-15 age group cricketers to learn the basics, and would be discouraged to be involved in limited-overs cricket. The accent would be in proper batting and bowling techniques. At the same time, we would be strict on the use of proper cricketing equipment – proper-weight balls and bats”.
According to Seneviratne, initially, there would be several changes made to the tournament structure, where there would be rules and regulations to be followed towards playing more positive cricket. At the same time, during the main U-19 season, a school could only play a maximum of 16 matches, where it would be put into two halves- 8 tournament matches and 8 traditional matches. However, if a school is interested in playing a ‘Big Match’, they are free to do so, and that would not be governed by SCNOP rules.
“When it comes to taking on foreign oppositions at home or abroad, all will have to go through the SCNOP selection process, and the U-15 and U-17, and that would be final. However, as the U-19 age group comes under the Sports Law, the programme’s selectors would initially select a given pool and submit it to the national cricket selectors, so that they could arrive at their final U-19 National Squad” added Seneviratne.
Seneviratne further added that, “One of the timely innovations we hope to introduce is the SCNOP Training Centres. The programme has identified certain areas of cricketing activity but, most of those schools lack grounds and facilities for proper training.
“For instance, take the southern region. How many cricketing schools are there? But, there aren’t sufficient grounds or training facilities. We have identified a ground facility that comes under the Education Department’s purview. We intend to build turf, matting and concrete wickets and indoor facilities, where other schools too could train. This facility would also have its own coaches and physiologists. We also hope to establish similar facilities in the Gampaha and Anuradhapura Districts.”