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by Pelham Juriansz

The Sri Lankan Indoor cricket team that took wing as debutants at the 4th Indoor Cricket World Cup from September 29 to October 6 in Wellington, New Zealand, certianly had some sweet memories when they packed their bags to return home.

Former Josephian Asela Pathirana skippered the men's team. The team was accompanied by coach Sachitra Siribaddana and Manager Thiran Thenabadu.

Participating at their first ever World Cup and ending up as No: 3 is quite an achievement.

Indoor Cricket saw its roots in Sri Lanka in May 2001. Since that time Sri Lanka Men's team has played 10 Test matches, and have won 8 of them.

After having two successful domestic tournaments a team of 10 young Indoor Cricketers were picked to represent Sri Lanka. Thereafter, the Sri Lankan Indoor Cricket team made their first official Tour to Adelaide, Australia to participate in one of Australia's major Tournaments, the interstate Tournament. The Sri Lankans used this Tournament to gain valuable experience.

The Tour was a great success as the Sri Lankans touring with no experience at all became the Champions losing only a single match in the whole Tournament.

After that Sri Lanka hosted India for the first International Test series. Sri Lanka made a clean sweep of the series 4-0 in their first series.

Australia toured Sri Lanka for a 3 match series. The Sri Lankans did it again when they created a major upset by beating the unbeaten Australians in the first encounter between the two countries. The World Champs, however then bounced back to win the 3 match series 2-1. Then the second ranked team England were trounced 3-0 by Sri Lanka, which was by then becoming an emerging force in the World of Indoor cricket.

Sri Lanka then eyed the World Cup with five countries participating, it was not to be. England, India, reigning champs Australia, and the host New Zealand were the other teams. South Africa withdrew at the last moment.

Sri Lanka played seven matches and won the first match comfortably against India, and lost the second to New Zealand. Playing Australia in the third match SL had to face another defeat but managed to squeeze a victory against England by 2 runs.

After the first round matches SL had to face New Zealand again in one of the pre-qualifying matches where New Zealand won by 26 runs. However Sri Lanka qualified to meet England in the quarter-finals and quite ironically Sri Lanka lost that match by 2 runs. Sri Lanka however managed to secure third place in the play off for third and fourth place.

Chitral Amarasiri, Chief Executive Officer of the Ceylon Indoor Cricket Association (CICA) said Caltex Lubricants Lanka Ltd., together with the National Carrier, SriLankan Airlines stepped forward to sponsor Indoor cricket.

Caltex has given a commitment to sponsor Indoor Cricket for the next 3 years. The sponsorship of Caltex was responsible for the men's and women's team that toured New Zealand and the sponsorship will continue till the next World Cup to be held in Sri Lanka in 2004.

The other co-sponsors of the Tour were Austasia Sports Private Ltd, Sri Lankan Airlines, Lanka Yalta (Pvt) Ltd. and Emerald International.

SriLankan Airlines sponsored the team from here to Singapore.

The Ceylon Indoor Cricket Association (CICA), the pioneers in introducing Indoor Cricket to Sri Lanka have done a marvellous job in developing Indoor Cricket to World standards in a very short time. Sri Lanka will host the World Cup in 2004 and it will be the first time that Sri Lanka will solely sponsor a World Cup in any sport.

The team that represented Sri Lanka for the Men's Tournament was as follows:

Asela Pathirana (Captain), Lyndon Hannibelsz, Chrysantha Peiris, Roshan Weerasinghe, Dilshan Witharana, Sanjeewa Jayaratne, Tharindu Mendis, Iroshan de Silva, Thushendra Zoysa and Chandika Kumara.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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