Coca-Cola cricket Pathway Super Camp:

Jaffna cricketers stir emotions

Richard DWIGHT

Undoubtedly, a step in the right direction for the future well- being of Sri Lanka cricket, was the coming together of Coca-Cola Beverages Sri Lanka Ltd and the Aravinda de Silva Cricket Foundation.

This well meaning partnership with the farsighted vision for the progress and betterment of cricket gave rise to Coca-Cola Cricket Pathway Camps - a training initiative designed to promote cricket at grassroots level, in collaboration with the Aravinda de Silva Cricket Foundation, the slogan being 'School champion to world champion'.

This innovative set up, mainly for schoolboys came to be 18 months ago, with the twin objectives of promoting cricket in the rural and regional areas. So as to discover untapped cricketing talent in the country. This project made up of a series of three-day training camps spanning a period of a year and a half, was well organised and conducted in Dambulla, Colombo, Kandy, Galle, Ratnapura, Kalutara, Jaffna, Batticaloa, Trincomalee and Akkaraipattu - ten camps in all.

There were in all 700 participants, from which 7 young promising players were selected from each camp based on their talent, technique and potential to take part in a super camp. The super camp which highlighted the completion of 10 camps under the Coca-Cola Cricket Pathway initiative, was organised from 26 to 28 June 2009 at the Prince of Wales grounds in Moratuwa, showcasing the cricket skills of 70 selected players from camps organised across Lanka. The best 70 players who were selected from the entire Coco-Cola cricket pathway initiative, played six T20 matches from which 5 super players were selected, for their exceptional talent and cricket skills.

Coaches who assisted at these were former Sri Lanka A team coach Stan Nell, Roshan Mahanama, Hashan Thilakeratne, Aravinda de Silva and yet other eminent national, provincial and district coaches.

The aforesaid information and details were gathered from the Country Marketing Manager, Coca-Cola, Dusty Alahakoon, who gave a narrative of the project at a media briefing held at the Taj Samudra Hotel on Monday, which marked the completion of the super camp at Prince of Wales College, Moratuwa. Also addressing the media at this briefing was the Country Manager, Coca-Cola, Patrick Pech and the Country Manager, Sri Lanka and Maldives Coca-Cola, Far East Manish Chaturvedi.

Aravinda de Silva, said that he had the distinctive advantage over his colleagues and contemporaries at school - mainly because he had the benefit of two national coaches training him from the age of 9. This experience he explained sparked of this project - where youngsters from different parts of the island irrespective of caste, creed or colour from different cultures and ethnicity, came together with much unity and fellow feeling, through the common bond of this great game cricket. These cricketers he felt could blossom out through the years to be the backup, standby to the national side.

He was of the view that unlike the Windies, the Aussies have standard strong teams, because they have a competent set of backup players. Aravinda concluded by saying that equipment and materials should not be a cause for worry, but human resources like players, coaches, trainers and physios, the rest would follow. The presence of seven cricketers from Jaffna viz. S. Milando Jennifer - St. Patricks, V. Kariwandana, R. Gajeeban and A. Vidusan from St. John's, R. Kobigan and R. Edirwardedin from Jaffna Central and T. Kapildev from Mahajan - did evoke sympathetic emotions for reasons well-known.

The lads from Jaffna who were accompanied by the Principal of St. John's Rev. N. Jameson Gnanarajah, and the SLC cricket coach for the Jaffna district N. T. Shanmugalingam mingled with relaxed gaiety and came in for honourable mention to line up at the podium.

Those who won awards at the super camp series of matches were - Best Batsman: Udara Jayasundera (Ananda), Best Bowler - Charith Wijesinghe (DSS), Man of the match of the finals - K. P. Gajasinghe (Mahinda, Galle).