Lankan lasses on cricket safari
The Sri Lanka women’s cricket team will embark on its first international tour after Jeevantha Kulatunga took over the reigns as its head coach. The team will leave for South Africa next Saturday to play three One Day Internationals and three Twenty20 games in addition to the only 50-over warm up game against the South Africa Emerging team on Tuesday.
Kulatunga, a surprise choice by Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) to fill the vacuum created by former coach Harsha de Silva, who decided to move to Australia after helping the national women’s team to qualify for the upcoming ICC World Women’s Twenty20 Championship to be held in February 2014 in Bangladesh. Kulatunga, who impressed the SLC with a comprehensive action plan on women’s cricket, for the first time took over a fulltime job as a cricket coach at national level with various visions. He told the Sunday Times that he has a three-fold action plan with different aims, but promised of taking the national women’s cricket team a step further.
“I’m working with a blend of short, mid and long term plans. In the long-term plan the objective is to reach among the top three ranks in the world in both forms. To achieve that we will have to realize the mid-term plan, which is to perform well in the upcoming ICC World T20 competition and reach the semi-final stage. To start things off, I will come out with the short-term plan which initiates from the South African tour. Besides aiming at wins, the tour will be about identifying the potential talents and observing how the players deal with match situations,” Kulatunga stated.
The former Colombo Colts middle-order batsman who has a tally of 9414 first class runs, inclusive of 14 tons and 57 half centuries, officially took over the women’s side on Sep- tember 1, but only got to work along with a squad of 20 players only for 14 days. Kulatunga says he is quite impressed with skills and talent he has seen so far of the girls, positively thinks that if he worked with them continuously for a period of six to eight weeks, he would be able to unleash the players’ true potentials ahead of the world event.
“I had to wait for almost a month to meet the squad as they were busy playing in the domestic competition which was quickly followed by the Defence Services competition. I was able to witness most of the matches of these tournaments and it’s quite evident that they are talented. In the short time we worked together I was able to identify their true abilities, which are unfortunately unwillingly held back by their own will. They need some time to unleash and it’s my job to cut and polish the gems they are meant to be,” Kulatunga stressed.
Besides the main squad, SLC maintains a development squad of 14 players under the watchful eyes of Coach Rohitha Perera. Kulatunga was highly pleased with the keen backing SLC shows to improve the standards of women’s cricket, by way of providing centre wicket practice sessions, nutrition, clothing and other facilities to its play- ers. He went on to say that the former coach Harsha de Silva has done a great deal of transformation to the side and his job has partly has become easier.
The Sri Lanka women’s team led by Sashikala Siriwardane will include three newcomers, Niluka Karunaratne, Norbert Ida and Rebecca Van Dort. While in South Africa, Kulatunga hopes to give each player the opportunity to play, depending on the progress and the outcomes. Sri Lanka women’s team will play three ODI matches, on September 24, 26 and 28 before the three Twenty20 games, which are scheduled for September 31, November 2 and 3. The team will return on November 5.
Sri Lanka women’s squad: Shashikala Siriwardane (Captain), Eshani Lokusooriya (VC), Chamari Atapattu, Yasoda Mendis, Dilani Manodara (wk), Niluka Karunaratne, Sripali Weerakkody, Udeshika Prabodhini, Chamari Seneviratne, Maduri Samuddika, Norbert Ida, Chandima Gunaratne, Rebecca Van Dort, Lasanthi Madushani.
Stand by: Sandamali Dolawatte, Oshadee Ranasinghe and Inoka Ranaweera.
Officials: Jeevantha Kulatunga (Coach), Roshan Iddamalgoda (Manager).