Sakuna Liyanage (17) going great guns in Major Cricket

Playing on turf wickets for the first time, a 17-year-old lad from the remote town of Monaragala is going great guns in the ongoing Major Youth Under- 23 Cricket Tournament conducted by Sri Lanka Cricket.

Heading the batting average with 72.10, Sakuna Liyanage, who represents Royal College, Monaragala was the main scorer for his alma mater scoring 631 runs in school matches this season. Reckoning his talents and the bright future lay ahead of this lad, Dinesh Weerasinghe, the coach of Nugegoda Sports Club invited him to play in the Under- 23 Tournament.

A fine left-handed batsman with strokes all round the wicket is a delight to watch when he is in full swing. Liyanage has accumulated 235 runs in five matches in the tournament so far. This front line batsman with a fine eye and fine footwork doesn’t take much time to settle. A useful right-arm fast medium bowler coming in the first change always keeps batsmen in check. Liyanage is an agile fielder in the cover region.

Speaking to the Education Times Liyanage said “Coming down to play cricket with First Class teams is an experience, I learnt a lot from the seniors in the team. I followed closely the way they bat and perform in the field. Match by match I followed the way to perform and in my maiden inning on a turf wicket against Sri Lanka Army and I scored 77 runs. Going further ahead in the next match against Baduraliya I scored 81 runs.”

He went on to say that he sees a big different in cricket at Monaragala and Colombo. The application for the game is high in Colombo and the technical aspects are very high.

“I never thought that I will perform this well on playing on turf wickets for the first time as we play on matting wickets in Monaragala. Correct technique and footwork is very vital when batting on turf wickets. The coach and the seniors helped me to improve my technique and foot movements,” he added.

Having started playing softball cricket back at home with brothers, he played in a practice game to earn a slot in the team of Royal College, Monaragala. The game, incidentally was a softball match, played with tennis balls.

“Watching me playing, the coach of Royal College, Nilantha sir asked me to come for practices in preparation for the big match in which I performed to satisfy not only myself, but my coaches. That was the beginning of my career in cricket,” Liyanage said of his beginning.

Liyanage intends to go up in his career by hard practice, listening to the coaches, with good discipline and sacrifice. I dearly thanked his parents, his coach Nilantha, Dinesh Weerasinge, the coach of Nugegoda SC, coaches Lalanga and Nisal and the captain and all members of his First Class team for helping him generate the exposure as a young cricketer. The young cricketer, has already laid the foundations to his ambition of finding a place in the national team for the ICC Under- 19 Cricket World Cup and ultimately the dream of any young cricketer, the Sri Lanka team.