Lankan stickers - a confident lot

Chandra SRI ASOKA , Bandara HINDAGODA-Matale District Special Corr.

Eighteen players have been selected for the national team by the Sri Lanka Hockey Association. The team is representing the country in the 11 South Asian Games which is being held in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

These 18 players have been selected out of a pool of 25 outstanding players who have shown their prowess in the previous tournaments. Four stand-by players have been nominated for the team.

T.M. Sagara Dammika Abeyratne attached to Sri Lanka Air Force is the captain of the team and Sameera Devapriya Perera of Sri Lanka Air Force functions as the vice captain. The coach S.M. Mulafer is a renowned personality who played for the national team for many years and captained the national team from 1985 to 1990.

The team consists of 11 well experienced senior players and seven new players. Out of the 18 members 12 are from Matale and the majority of players represent Sri Lanka Air Force.

The captain of the team 32 year old Dhammika Abeyratne, is a product of Christ Church College, Matale.

He is one who has very interest and talented. He played and captained Matale district team, Air Force team and Defence Services team.

Dhammika has been playing for the national team since 1997. Two elder brothers of Dhammika Indrawansha Herath and Prasanna Abeyrathne also were Sri Lankan hockey players who functioned as captains of the National teams.

Sameera Perera, the vice captain is 28 years of age. He studied at Uva Maha Vidyalaya in Badulla.

Sameera represented Sri Lanka schools team, District team, Provincial team and Defence Services team.

He also captained the teams he represented.

S.M. Mulafer gave his views about the team. Our team consists of number of very experienced players and they were given a better training.

The highest position we have achieved in this tournament is Bronze. I’m confident that, our guys have the capacity to go for Silver. We wish that we can reach the expected position.

The captain Dammika also emphasized that they have strength and courage to win the tournament as the team consists of a number of experienced players. He also highly appreciated the training they had.

The team: Dhammika Abeyrathne (Captain-Sri Lanka Air Force) Sameera Perera (Vice Captain - Sri Lanka Air Force) Diluka Weerasuriya, Harshana Hettiarachchi (Sampath Bank) Anura Karunarathne, D.T. Panditharathne, Thusith Rathnasiri, M.M. Mulafer, Sameera Wijekoon (Sri Lanka Army), Anju Hewage (Commercial Bank), M.M. Gasalee (Hatton National Bank), M.T. Mahesh (Sri Lanka Police), Randika Fernando, M.G. Sanjeewa (Sri Lanka Navy), Milinda Hapugasgodage (Matale Hockey Association).