Sajith - Best Professional player in English Minor League

Sampath BANDARA

Sajith Fernando was named Best Professional League Player in the English Minor League Cricket Tournament in England last year. He played for Bolton League, Manchester and scored 1,210 runs and bagged 67 wickets, an excellent performance indeed.

Sajith Fernando, a fine left-hand batsman and right-arm off spinner scored over 1,000 runs in 10 consecutive years for the Bolton League.

He is an old boy of St. Anthony's College, who played for his school in 1988, 1989, 1990 and 1992. He scored 1,000 runs and bagged 100 wickets in the year 1992 and was selected the Observer Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year in the same year. He toured England with Under-19 team and toured Bangladesh with Sri Lanka 'A' team.

Sajith Fernando also toured South Africa with Under-24 team under Sanath Jayasuriya in 1993. He captained Under-24 Sri Lanka team in 1995 and had an opportunity to lead Sri Lanka 'A' team in the year 1998. He represented the Sri Lanka team for Hong Kong Sixes for several years.

He played for President's Board XI in one day matches vs Australia and New Zealand and scored 80 and 79.

He passed Level I (Australia) and Level II (England) coaching programmes and coached Lancashire and Yorkshire school teams.

Now he is nearing 10,000 runs in First Class cricket in Sri Lanka representing Tamil Union. He is a stylish left-hand batsman with correct technique and aspiring to play Test cricket for a long time.

Sajith is also the highest run-getter of Premier League Tournament this season with 823 runs representing Tamil Union Cricket and Athletic Club.