Architects Asia Cup Cricket Twenty20 February 16-20
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Chief guest Rangana Herath at the opening ceremony
As an effort to strengthen the inter-relationship between the architects in the Asian region through cricket, the Sports Committee of Sri Lanka Institute of Architects organising the Architects’ Asia Cup Cricket Twenty20 Tournament 2018 held from February 16 to 20.
This is the first time that such an international cricket tournament is organised in Sri Lanka, where three major cricket playing countries in the region, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and India will be taking part.
Preliminary round matches are being be played at Tyronne Fernando Cricket Stadium and the final will be played at Colts Cricket ground at Havelock Town. Each team will play two matches with other two teams and the best two teams will compete in the final.
The opening ceremony was held on Friday at the Tyronne Fernando Stadium with Rangana Herath, left-arm spinner and the former Test vice captain of Sri Lanka gracing the occasion as the chief guest. The guest of honour was eminent architect, Mano Ponniah, who has also represented the country in cricket when it was called Ceylon and played First Class cricket both in Sri Lanka and in England from 1964 to 1969.
The closing and award presentation ceremony will be held on Tuesday at the Colts ground with Aravinda de Silva, one of Sri Lanka’s all-time cricketing greats, coming in as the chief guest. Several other cricketers from the 1996 World Cup winning team and the 2014 T20 World Cup winning team will be participating as special guests.
The Sri Lanka Architects team is captained by Manoj Champika, as opening batsman and a left-arm spinner and the vice captain is all-rounder Sulochana Amunugama. The team is coached by Sanjaya Wijesinghe. The Sri Lankan team also toured India in 2011 and Pakistan in 2015.
Pakistan team is captained by Ramiz Baig. They have toured Sri Lanka in 2014 and six players from that team have been included in to the squad for the Asia Cup. The India team is captained by Jitendra Mehta and Ayush Bhardwaj is the vie captain. This is the first time and Indian Architects cricket team is touring Sri Lanka.