Imraz Raffi had an excellent season

Achala RAMANAYAKA

Imraz Raffi is a young talented cricketer from Zahira College, Colombo. The 17- year-old lad did well with the bat in the recently concluded schools 1st XI cricket season.

The left hand hard hitting middle order batsman contributed heavily to his team throughout the season. He has scored over 850 runs in 17 matches with three centuries and four half centuries.

He scored centuries against St. Thomas (100), Sri Sumangala College, Panadura (111) and his personal best being 114 not out against Sri Jayawardanapura.

Imraz a 17-year-old showed his talent throughout the season. He managed to score half centuries against Devananda College, Ambalangoda (76), St. Benedict's College (54), S.Thomas' Mount Lavinia (52) and Isipathana College (51).

Apart from his batting he bowls right-arm off spin and also keeps wicket in the absence of the regular wicketkeeper.

In the under 17 tournament last year he did well both with bat and ball. As a specialist batsman he scored more than 230 runs in just six matches with two half centuries against Dharmapala MV (82) and Isipathana (52). Also during the tournament he captured 18 wickets with a personal best of six wickets for twenty-five runs.

This highly talented 17-year-old cricketer's performance in the recent past did make him an automatic choice for the under 17 trials, which was held to choose the 16 man squad to tour India next month. But unfortunately this talented young cricketer has been left out of the original 16 man touring team.