Super Provincial Tournament aimed at bridging the gap between domestic and international cricket...

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) President, Thilanga Sumathipala stressed yesterday that prioritizing the Super Provincial Tournament dividing the cream of the country’s domestic cricketing talent was the culmination to uplifting the domestic structure to reach desirable international standards.

Addressing the media at the launching of the tournament at JAIC Hilton’s Ballroom Auditorium, the SLC President observed that much accentuation had been made on giving a facelift to domestic cricket in the fruition of providing a competition platform to bridge the gap between domestic and international cricket. Accordingly it was a happy and laudable occasion for provincial cricket that had been introduced in 2003. The tournament would be worked out from March 30 to April 24.

Others at the head table were SLC Vice President directly overseeing domestic cricket Mohan de Silva, SLC CEO, Ashley de Silva, Cricket Manager, Asanka Gurusinha, Tournament Director, Ranjith Madurusinghe and the four captains Angelo Mathews, Dinesh Chandimal, Suranga Lakmal and Dimuth Karunaratne.

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“This year much emphasis has been laid on the super provincial tournament with the cream divided into four squads namely Colombo, Dambulla, Galle and Kandy. National players would be playing with local heroes with the teams captained by topmost players,” Sumathipala said. Noting that school cricket had been the latent talent feeding cradle to the national mainstream, he pointed out that the latest provincial initiative was path breaking in that rural talent would be further enhanced. This was so because SLC had set the groundwork to look beyond the hitherto gamut of looking at talent from 600 schools although there were about 9000 schools,” he added.

Sumathipala made the point that the high point of the super provincial tournament was that Sri Lanka Cricket had at long last paved the way to optimizing domestic cricket to the highest international standards on par with countries like Australia. The new gamut would usher a chapter evolving domestic cricket played from November 2018 to April 2019 to international standards. The age limit would range from 13 years to 21 khad been provided especially for clubs with grounds of their own theming on strengthening the 24 teams. The four super provincial teams chosen for the upcoming provincial tournament had been provided with the best qualified coaches with international experience. Importantly, SLC had also appointed a tournament director in Ranjith Madurusinghe to drive the new concept successfully while Asnka Gurusinha would be cricket manager. Optimum training facilities included swimming pools. The latest drive was under a far reaching ten year plan reaching out as far as Galle and Jaffna, Kandy and Badulla.

The SLC President praised the national T20 captain Thisara Perera in the recent Nidahas Trophy match against Bangladesh for not losing his cool. Today at a time Australian cricket was in shambles following the recent ball tampering episode, observed that Sri Lanka Cricket was proud that Lankan players had always set a benchmark in respect of maintaining the highest standard of discipline on and off the field.

The four provincial captains provincial captains Angelo Mathews of the Kandy, Dinesh Chandimal of Colombo, Dimuth Karunaratne of Dambulla and Suranga Lakmal of Galle also spoke. Mathews (Kandy) said that the staging of such a tournament was laudable where more players would be given an opportunity of showcasing their talents. The team leaders did have a big responsibility of imparting their know-how.

Dinesh Chandimal (Colombo) thanked SLC for organizing tournament of such a magnitude that would be a boon to rural cricket with the most talented players devided.

Suranga Lakmal (Galle) welcome the new concept saying that it was an opportunity for players to compete in such a quality tournament and maintain the high standards envisaged.

Dimuth Karunaratne (Dambulla) said that this tournament was a good initiative for cricket at large. It was bound to provide that experience that young players need.

By Srian Obeyesekere

-The opinions expressed here are the views of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Sri Lanka Cricket