By Dhammika Ratnaweera
Sri Lanka’s former test captain and now head coach of the U19 cricket team Hashan Tillakeratne says that team under the captaincy of Nipun Dhananajaya is brimming with confidence ahead of the ICC U19 World Cup. “The success in the Triangular ODI tournament in West Indies have given them lot of confidence and taught how to play positive cricket” said coach Tillakeratne.
Sri Lanka, England and host West Indies took part this tournament and Champion Sri Lankans made a fine team effort to earn the title.
“Actually after the last West Indies tour Under 19 cricket team had a special training camp at Dambulla and this was very important and we made specific training for the players. Sri Lanka Cricket organised this four-day training session and players involved with maximum effort in this final training session” said Tillekaratna. He further said that he was happy to note that some of the brilliant individual performances within the team has transpired everyone and made a transition towards a collective team performance.
“Performing as a team is more important than the individual performances to win a game. I was very happy to see this at the last final game in West Indies. It had really given full confidence to the Sri Lanka team. This time we made few changes at the final squad to the world cup. We wanted to make more strength at the top batting order and that’s why we made addition top-order player. Especially we wanted to get technically correct batsman to strength the top batting order.” added the coach.
Sri Lanka will be in the same group ‘A’ with India, New Zealand and Japan In this world cup. “Our first aim is to go match by match and wanted to win at least two matches first. Japan is a debut world cup team but we never underestimate any opponents. Talking about Sri Lanka team we have good batsman, bowlers and all three departments are good enough to compete with other teams.” explained Tillakaratne.
16-Participants in ICC U19 World Cup 2020
· Group A – India, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Japan
· Group B – Australia, England, West indies, Nigeria
· Group C – Pakistan, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Scotland
· Group D – Afghanistan, South Africa, UAE, Canada
· Sri Lanka will meet India on 19th January ,
· Sri Lanka will meet New Zealand on 22nd January
· Sri Lanka will meet Japan on 25th January
Sri Lanka under 19 team for the world cup
Nipun Dhananjaya (C) (Joseph Vaz Wennapuwa), Kamil Mishara(Royal Colombo), Navod Paranawithana (Mahinda Galle), Ahan Wickramasinghe( Royal Colombo), Ravindu de Silva(S. Thomas Mt Lavinia), Sonal Dinusha(Mahanama, Colombo), Mohamed Shamaz(Zahira, Maradan), Thaveesha Abhishek(Richmond Galle), Chamindu Wijesinghe(Nalanda Colombo), Ashain Daniel(St Joseph’s Colombo), Dilum Sudeera(Richmond Galle), Dilshan Madushanka(Hungama Wijayaba National school), Amshi de Silva(Richmond Galle), Kavindu Nadeeshan(Dharmasoka Ambalangoda), Matheesha Pathirana(Trinity Kandy) Head Coach – Hashan Thilakarathne, Chamila Gamage (fast bowling coach), Sachith Pathirana(Spin bowling coach )Upul Chandana(Fielding coach ) Manager– Farveez Maharoof
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