Imesh Udayanga does Dharmasoka proud

ACHALA RAMANAYAKE

Imesh Udayanga, a player who has reached great heights in the local schools cricket arena is another outstanding cricketer from Dharmasoka College, Ambalangoda. As the skipper of the under 19 college team, he guided his team to three victories against more fancied Nalanda College, Colombo, St. Anne’s College, Kurunegala and Rahula College, Matara.

In the ongoing schools cricket season he has performed well with both bat and ball, as he has scored 932 runs in 15 matches with two hundreds and seven fifties and 102 not out against Thurstan being his best.

As he has captured over 90 wickets this season along with six, five-wicket hauls and a remarkable match bag of 13 wickets against Rahula College, Matara being his best bowling performance. As an innings best bowling performance Imesh captured 9 wickets for 81 runs against Dharmapala MV.

This young all rounder toured with the Sri Lanka under 19 cricket squad to Bangladesh in 2007 for the 1st time and also in the same year he performed well in the tri-nation tournament with India and Bangladesh which was held in Sri Lanka.

His performance in that series as well as in the tri nation tournament against England and Pakistan in January 2008 which also held in Sri Lanka made him an automatic selection for the under 19 cricket World Cup which was held in Malaysia in 2008 and unfortunately where the Sri Lankan team did not perform well.

This future Sri Lanka prospect is currently playing for the Invitation Schools cricket team in the inter provincial twenty20 tournament and has done reasonably well with the given chance. At the same time he is getting ready for the upcoming under 19 Bangladesh tour which is scheduled for April.

As any other schoolboy cricketer this young lad is also looking forward to joining the national cricket team in the near future.

Imesh captured 3 wickets for 19 runs to pilot his school to a sensational 12 run win over the formidable Anandians in the pre-quarter final played last Friday.

Dharmasoka has produced many outstanding cricketers of the calibre of Ajith de Silva. Upul Tharanga, Saman Jayantha, H. Premasiri, D. S. P. Tedlal and Dinesh Chandimal (before he crossed over to Ananda) and Imesh is sure to follow in their footsteps.