Lucky Rogers Fernando completes four years as Ananda’s coach

Upananda Jayasundera, Kandy Sports Special Correspondent

Lucky Rogers Fernando, the present Cricket coach of Ananda College, Colombo, is completing four years in his capacity as Head Coach. An old Boy of Moratuwa Maha Vidyalaya.

Lucky had the distinction of touring with the Sri Lanka Youth Cricket team under Marvan Atapattu at the Asia Youth Cup held in 1990 in Bangladesh. They became Runners-up to India in the finals.

He accompanied the team as a wicket-keeper, batsman. His team mates were Pramodya Wickremasinghe, Piyal Wijetunge, Duleep Liyanage and Kumar Dharmasena to name a few.

In 1989, as a Schoolboy he scored 1493 runs with five centuries i.e. against Dharmaloka, Kelaniya 264 n.o. against Zahira Colombo twin centuries 188 and 166, against St. John's Nugegoda, twin centuries again when he scored 164 in the 1st innings and 159 n.o., in the 2nd innings. Against Sri Sumangala, Panadura in their Big Match he scored an unbeaten 59.

That particular year he became the Outstation Schoolboy Cricketer and Outstation Best Batsman. Also Runner-up as an outstation Best Fielder.

After leaving School, Lucky joined NCC and played two years and he had the privilege of playing Cricket in Australia where he played Club cricket for 7 years for North Cufield. His Coaches were Bernard Perera and Chandana Mahesh.

Lucky was the 1st Coach of Sri Lanka Test Spinner Ajantha Mendis. He has also coached Dinesh Chandimal for 2 years. He says that he will continue coaching at Ananda College till the School authorities need his service.