Netball: Sri Lanka leaves for Asian Championship with high hopes

With high hopes of dethroning the strong Singaporean side and reclaiming the Asian crown, the Sri Lanka Netball team left for Bangkok, Thailand for the Asian Netball Championship last Thursday (28).

"The Sri Lanka Netball team expects to go a long way at the 10th Asian Senior Netball Championship in Bangkok, starting with the curtain-raiser against newcomers Afghanistan. With an expected win against the Afghans on Monday (1), the lasses are determined to finish the tournament as Asian winners," captain of the Sri Lanka team, Gayani Dissanayake said. 

Ten teams are participating in the Championship which concludes on August 7. 

Defending champions Singapore are slotted with Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei, Thailand and Maldives in Group 'A', while in Group 'B' runner-up Sri Lanka are with Malaysia, Brunei, Japan and Afghanistan. 

Sri Lanka will meet Japan in the second match on Tuesday (2), Malaysia on the following day, and their last Group match will be against Brunei on Thursday (4).
 
Asian champs Singapore is placed 24th while Sri Lanka is ranked 27th according to the latest World Netball rankings. 

According to skipper Dissanayake, except for Malaysia which is a fairly strong outfit, Sri Lanka will not face strong challenges in the first Round. 

Dissanayake a former Visakhian with seven years of national level experience, is employed at the HNB. 

She earlier represented the Navy Netball team. 

She was the deputy skipper of team that participated at the Netball World Cup held in Sydney last year, and captained Sri Lanka when it won the Asian Youth Netball Championship in Hong Kong in December last year. 

Dissnanayake's main aim is to win the Asian Championship as Sri Lanka ended runners-up in 2012 (Colombo) and 2014 (Singapore) losing to Singapore at both occasions in the finals. 

On the other hand, Singapore too will be aiming for a hat-trick of Asian Championships this year, with Sri Lanka all out to stop them in this edition. 

Sri Lanka were champions on four occasions in 1989, 1997, 2001 and 2009. 

Singapore has won the championship thrice in 2005, 2012 and 2014. 

Malaysia were the inaugural winners of the Asian Netball Championship in 1985. 

At the last World Cup where 16 teams qualified, Sri Lanka and Singapore were placed 16 and 15 respectively. 

Deepthi Alwis a former Sri Lanka captain will be the coach, whose daughter Semini Alwis led the national side at the last World Cup in Sydney. 

Semini failed to find a place in this year's team for the Asian Championship. 

A noteworthy feature is that, the team will leave without an assistant coach and a trainer. 

Vajira Pushpakumari, a former National player is the Manager of the team. 

SL Squad: Gayani Dissnayake (Capt.), Dharshika Abeywickrema (VC), Hasitha Mendis, Gayanjali Amarawansa, Thilini Wattegedara, Surekha Kumari, Deepika Dhashani, Thivanka Perera, Ruwani Yatigammana, Sharmalie Ratnayake, Kanchana Jayaweera, Dulangi Jayangani.