Malaysian cricket looks for Lankan coaches

The Malaysian Malay’s cricket academy is currently touring Sri Lanka to participate in the Nelson Mendis Junior Cricket tournament which is non-school club private club event organized by CCC school of cricket. The Malaysian Malay’s cricket Academy team is managed by Rosmanizam Abdullah. The Sunday Times caught up with Rosmanizam Abdullah for an interview.

We started by asking him about his background he said that he had played club cricket for Kuala Lumpur Club side in the 70’s and 80’s and was the Malaysian cycling federation competition secretary. Although he said that cricket is playing second fiddle to sports like Badminton and Squash in Malaysia their Malaysian Malay’s cricket association is working hard to see that cricket will get the necessary popularity among the public.

The Malaysian government is trying hard to get their people interested in sports and is doing some programmes to get people involved in sports. Abdullah said School cricket in Malaysia is not all that popular However because Sri Lanka school cricket is one of the best in the world they were planning to go according to Sri Lanka school cricket.

There are over 100 clubs playing cricket in Malaysia and the Malaysian Malay’s cricket association is doing development programmes which will see players going into these clubs from an academy. Lankan Lions is most famous cricket playing Club in Malaysia and became the runners up in the Kuala Lumpur league tournament in 2004 said Abdullah and went onto add that their players train at the Victorian Institution in the intermediate centre for excellence section.

He said Thushara Kodikara, Kapila Silva, Priyankara Wickremasinghe and Sarath Jayawardena are some of the Sri Lankans involved in Malaysian cricket. All these players have represented Sri Lanka A team. Abdullah said due to the fact that Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana who revalorized batting in the 1996 World Cup have played in Malaysia they follow the progress of players such as Kumar Sangakkara, Muttiah Muralitharan, Mahela Jayewardena. Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana.

Asked of his opinion How the Malayisan sports fans reacted to Muttiah Muralitharan’s World Record he said they were happy. Coming back to the team which is touring Sri Lanka I asked him which player will make his mark in the future He said Fikrian’s Fatullah Khan is a player to watch out. They fared poorly was his answer when asked How the Malaysian national team fared in the Asian Cricket Council tournament.

In conclusion he had one request to the Sri Lanka cricket authorities he said if they can send some of Sri Lanka coaches to their academy to coach their youngsters.