Will there be a change of fortunes for the Lankans?
After an awful and bitter 0-2 Test series defeat in Australia, the Sri Lankans have landed in Durban, South Africa with usual hopes of ‘winning’, this time sans regular skipper Dinesh Chandimal. The two-match Test series will begin on Wednesday at Kingsmead, Durban, under stand-in skipper Dimuth Karunaratne and without six regulars. The ones who [...]
Sports Ministry calls for report on ‘misuse of accreditation’ from NOC
The Sports Ministry has called for a comprehensive report from the National Olympic Committee of Sri Lanka (NOC) about reports that it “misused accreditations” for last year’s Commonwealth Games. The Ministry directive comes after the Sports Minister received a written complaint that the NOC granted official accreditation to the wife of Mahinda Liyanage, then President [...]
Another legal battle looms
The tussle for Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC), the country’s richest sports body, will take a fresh turn with two candidates poised to seek legal redress after their nominations were rejected by a three-member Advisory Committee. Elections are scheduled for February 21. Mohan de Silva, who was expecting to succeed Thilanga Sumathipala at the helm, had [...]
Navod expands lead, despite changes in the middle
Navod Paranavithana of Mahinda College expanded his lead while dominating the All-Island Schools while changes occurred in the following three places at the end of the 17th week of the Dialog 4G-the Sunday Times Most Popular Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year 2019 contest. After the online process kicked off last weekend significant changes have begun [...]
SLADA desperate to eradicate doping from sports
Sri Lanka Anti Doping Agency (SLADA) is eyeing at doubling its quota of awareness programmes for this year, after 2018 ended with nine athletes testing positive for using banned substances, a record high in numbers. Director General of SLADA, Dr. Seevalie Jayawickrama was highly concerned on making the sportsmen and sportswomen of tomorrow more alert [...]
Kanishka bags 10 for 87 against Bens
St. Peter’s dominated proceedings against home team St. Benedicts on the back of a fine half century by man-in-form Santhush Gunatileke (66) and a superb bowling spell by Kanishka Maduwantha (10 for 87) in their inter-school cricket fixture at Kotahena on Saturday The second day’s play saw St. Peter’s resuming from their overnight score of [...]
Kandy barely survive glorious CR onslaught
What a game – one of the best in recent times. Kandy started off in a blaze of red-hot rugby. The outsids handled the ball splendidly and they were able to find gaps in the CR defence at will. CR waited for the storm to subside and spend itself, and then started to work themselves [...]
Rajans-splendid show against Ananda
Opener Isuru Dayananda’s 363 minute, 274 ball knock of 123 ensured that the Rajans overhauled Ananda’s fairly tall total of 271 in their drawn match at Lake View. Dayananda and skipper Sachintha Senanayake added 114 for the first wicket, as the Dharmaraja batting clicked. Senanayake missed out on a fifty. However all rounder Yasitha Samararatne [...]
Trilling draw at Ratmalana
Ratmalana was the venue of another hard-fought game that went down to the wire as the Army and the Police were involved in a 24-all draw. Both teams had identical ways of picking up the points – 2 goals and two tries either way/ It could be said that the Army enjoyed a good second [...]
29th Royal-Thomian Past Cricketers Annual Dinner
The annual gathering of former Battle of the Blues Cricketing Rivals takes place on March 6, at The Atrium Lobby, Cinnamon Grand, from 7.30 pm onwards. All past Cricket Coloursmen of both schools are invited to this event of fun, fellowship and camaraderie. Tickets available at the gate. Please contact any of the following for [...]
CCC and SSC in keen tussle for the title
The final round of matches of the Premier Super 8 Cricket Tournament, which will decide the champions, is turning out to be a keen tussle between table leaders CCC and SSC. The battle was evident when proceedings ended on day three at Colts CC and P. Sara Stadium yesterday. CCC, who is leading the points [...]
Angelo Perera – the elegant run machine
Former St. Peter’s College skipper Angelo Perera has been one of the most consistent batsmen in the 1st Class arena, in recent times. In the past few weeks, he has scored twin double hundreds in the Super 8 matches of the Sri Lanka Cricket Premier League Tournament. As a result of his consistency, he has [...]
Galle CC hits 142
Galle Cricket Club on its 142nd Anniversary, celebrated it with a well attended members’ get together recently. Air Vice Marshal Ravi Arunthavanathan (retd.) graced the occasion as the Chief Guest. He had played for Richmond College, Southern Combined Schools and the Air Force. He was also the Tournament Director of the first ever ICC tournament [...]
Samarasinghe brothers — first trio to captain STC Rugby
Referrence to our news item last week, the Rajapaksa brothers — Namal (2005), Yoshitha (2006) and Rohitha (2008) and and Senanayake brothers Hashaka (2014), Hashith (2015) and Harith (this season) were not the only brothers who captained S. Thomas’ College at Rugby in inter-school matches as the Samarasinghe brothers had captained the side several decades [...]
NSSF set up ‘makeshift’ shooting range, after ‘waiting in vain’
The National Shooting Sports Federation of Sri Lanka (NSSF), after eagerly, desperately and fruitlessly waiting for state support to build up a permanent national shooting range, has put up a makeshift air rifle range, aiming to support its national shooters which include upcoming School children who will be the future medalists in the sport of [...]
Sri Lankan pro golfers tee off into new season
The top four Sri Lankan Professional Golfers R A Anura Rohana, Mithun Perera, N. Thangaraja and K. Prabagaran, ventured into the new season of PGTI (Professionals Golf Tour of India) 2019, as they participate in the curtain raiser in Hyderabad, at the Golconda Masters 2019, played at the Hyderabad Golf Club, from February 6th – [...]
Havies have to keep CH at bay
This is easier said than done as, right now, the CH is on a really hot-streak, having won all five of their second round matches. Success brings in its wake confidence, and the CH are nothing but a confident side at the moment. Thus the Havies, however good and effective a combination, could be tilting [...]
Sailors set to cruise along against Airmen
The Navy and the Air Force who meet at Welisara today have, collectively, a single win in ten games. A little surprisingly, that win was achieved by the Airmen at the expense of the Police. Both Navy and Air Force may be feeding off the crumbs that fall from the table. Air Force’s performance in [...]
International Schools Athletics from February 15 to 17
The International Schools’ Athletics Championship (ISAC) is scheduled to be held from February 15 to 17 at the Sugathadasa Stadium. There will be around 1500 athletes from 21 reputed International Schools and 350 technical officials, officiating at the event.A large gathering of over 15,000 spectators including students, parents and past pupils is expected to attend [...]
A dream come true for young Renaldi Dias
With a dream of holding the Cricket World Cup one day as a member of the Sri Lanka Cricket team, young Sri Lankan Renaldi Dias stands beside the ICC World Cup when it arrived in Australia on its tour around the world. Renaldi Dias who plays for the Moorabbin Cricket Club, is under the wing [...]
Central Finance beat NDB by 40 runs
Vikum Costa along with Nimesh Fernando and Anura Karunaratne guided Central Finance to a 40-run victory over National Development Bank in the first quarter-final match of the Coca Cola-MCA ‘D’ Division 40-Over League Tournament 2019 played at the MCA Grounds yesterday. Batting first Central Finance scored 184 in 38.8 overs. Costa top scored with an [...]
Sports Minister in role of a mediator
Minister of Sports, Harin Fernando met Sri Lanka cricketers Lasith Malinga, Angelo Mathews, Thisara Perera and Dinesh Chandimal, in a bid to iron out difference among them, if there were any. The four cricketers have led the national teams at different capacities, but are now in a zone of conflict as the underperforming national team [...]
Lost in a cricket masquerade
This song written and produced by singer, song writer, musician Leon Rusell way back in 1972, indeed, has a deep meaning. That is why dozens of other artistes also have recorded the same with passion and feeling. Why? The song delivers a message to mankind. Translating these sentiments to a cricketing aura is not an [...]
Pete Santhush batting prodigy par excellence
Santhush Gunatilaka, the ace Peterite batsman became the first to reach the 1000-run mark in the Singer Division I Under-19 Cricket Tournament in the 2018/19 season. Gunatilaka scored his 4th consecutive century against D.S. Senanayake College to announce his entry to the 1000-run club. The Sri Lanka Under-19 Cricket coloursman has totaled 1,077 runs in [...]
When an unlikely comet emblazoned the Cricketing skies
In the entire history of Test cricket, dating back to 1877 with 1,650 plus games played to date, no player dominated a single encounter with such an epic all-round performance. It was certainly an instance of a ‘comet’ eclipsing an entire galaxy of ‘stars’! Today, the term all-rounder is used rather loosely. Anyone who can [...]
Changing Tennis World of 2019
The world of Tennis will see a great deal of change this year. Globally and locally, we will feel it for good many reasons. The lack of stimulants in the old system to propel the game to the benefit of the players and loss of excitement to the spectators are the causes for it. In [...]
Kandy’s faltering dominance renews interest of Rugby fans
I was told that there was a time when people watched Rugby that was intense and exciting. Then crept in a boring dominance by Kandy SC for a little over a quarter century. People groaned and moaned about losing players, but the story was the same. Kandy SC’s two recent losses appear to have woken [...]