Shihan Kamileen, a fine cricketer

Thushan JAYASURIYA

Shihan Kamileen, one of the up and coming players in the Sri Lanka Cricket arena with a strong determination on his way to reach the stardom.

Started his career as a school boy cricketer at Dharmapala Vidyalaya,Kottawa and Thurstan College, Colombo he has come across quite along way in his school cricket career.

The stylish right-hand middle order batsman and the former u-19 captain of Thurstan College reached this milestone with a magnificent knock of 116, his third century in year 2010 during the match against Maliyadeva College in Kurunegala.

Kamileen a fourth year coloursman was really determined to achieve this milestone from the start after having missed out during 2007 and 2008 . In fact last year he ended up with a tally of 720 runs and the previous season he missed out 12 games with an injury after having collected 400 runs.

Kamileen showed early promise of turning into a top schoolboy cricketer while representing Dharmapala MV Kottawa in the under 13 and under 15 inter-school junior tournaments while functioning as the vice captain of the team.

Like all young schoolboys he received plenty of support and encouragement from his parents and the three elder sisters who were always behind him in both victory and defeat. In the beginning of course he was selected to play for the side purely for his capabilities as a good close-in fielder. He of course had some difficulties in adjusting his style of batting from a matting wicket at Dharmapala MV to a turf wicket at Thurstan College. But thanks to the valuable guidance of his coach, Kamileen soon picked up the finer points of batting and matured into a solid middle order batsman.

After ending his school cricket career, he joined Saracens Sports Club in 2010 and played for period of one year. Then he joined Colts Cricket Club and plays for it by now.In 2011, he scored 400 runs for Colts Cricket Club in the under 23 cricket tournament.

This season he has excelled in seven matches , scoring 638 runs(three centuries, one half century) with a highest individual score of 167 runs and an average of 49.07.

His strength is of course the ability to collect runs quickly when needed and could also play the sheet anchor role and settle to play a much longer innings. These are some of the qualities which he exhibited this season to the maximum that has brought great results for him and his team overall. He was among the top 140 in the selection rounds of the Sri Lanka Premier League too. Shihan was promoted to tier “A”of the premier cricket scoring of highest number of points.

Shihan Kamileen of course a superb cricket star who has a bright future.One day he might be able to play for the Sri Lanka National team. We wish him all the success.