Coca-Cola Cricket Pathway to unearth rural talent

Thushan Jayasuriya

The Coca-Cola Cricket Pathway,is ready to start its third season discovering the grassroots cricket talent organized by Coca-Cola Beverages Sri Lanka in collaboration with Aravinda De Silva foundation.

This time some of the best people in cricket like Ravi Pushpakumara and Nuwan Soyza will be involved in the three day training camp.

The season will begin in Colombo and Coca Cola is planning to take the tournament to Jaffna and Galle as well. Over 73 young players from around 125 schools participated in the camp.A total of four camps will be held this year. Two camps will be held in Colombo, one will commence in Jaffna and other one will be at Galle. This is rare experience for school cricketers to get an exposure under highly talented cricket players who have played for the national team. This camp was a great stage for the Sri Lanka Cricket officials too as it helps to identify highly talented lads from the far corners of the Island.

Speaking at the occassion Aravinda De Silva, Administrator, Coca-Cola Cricket Pathway, Chairman Aravinda De Silva Cricket Foundation " We are very glad to be partnering with Coca Cola for the third time in three years and we hope that Season 3 is as exciting as the last two camps. We are looking forward to host four camps to cover entire country.And we hope to have a super camp participating top players picked from the above four camps. I'm really happy to be a part of thisand I think this is a great opportunity to young players."

The pathway has also seen a number of participants moving forward to join the Sri Lanka National Under 19 team. Season one of the Coca Cola Cricket Pathway boasted of 10 participants joining the Sri Lanka National Under 19 team and Season two contributed 13 players to the SriLanka National Under 19 pool.