A budding basketball player

BASKETBALL: Oshedi Karunaratne, the year 10 student of Colombo International School is a talented and promising basketballer who has performed well to bring fame to the school. Recently she represented Sri Lanka at the 18th FIBA Asia Basketball Championships.

The young cager Oshedi is making every effort putting a lot of individual practice to master every department of the game, ball handling, dribbling, passing, shooting and on rebounds too.

At the age of 13 her achievements in basketball are Most Valuable Player at the 2003 under-13 International School Tournament, Most Valuable Player at the under 19 British School Basketball Tournament in 2004, All Star Player at the 2004 under-19 British School Tournament, All Star Player at the 2004 under-19 Overseas School Tournament, at 14 Most Valuable Player at the 2005 under-19 British School Tournament, All Star Player at the 2005 under-19 British School Tournament, All Star Player at the 2005 under-19 Overseas School Tournament, Best Offensive Player at the 2005 under-17 British School Tournament and Best Player at the 2006 under-19 British School Tournament at 15.

Her rise to become a good basketball player and play at national level is due to her coaches T.M. Ahmath, Ajith Kuruppu, Haize Haroon and Prasanna Jaysinghe’s guidance and support. Her main aim is to continue playing basketball for the country and bring honour.

Oshedi is also a fine athlete. She became under-13 champion athlete at the 2003 International Schools Athletic Championships and under-15 champion at the 2005 International Schools Athletic Championships.

She is following her grandfather, James Perera a former Benedictine and national gymnast and national gymnastic coach and grandmother Sriya Perera national volleyball player, cyclist, gymnast and an athlete.