Sachith Pathirana leaves for India tomorrow

by S. M. Jiffrey ABDEEN - Kandy Sports Corr.

CRICKET: Twenty-year-old Sachith Pathirana becomes only the third cricketer from the Central Province to sign up for the Indian Premier League Twenty/20 cricket tournament after the two legendaries Kumar Sangakkara and Muttiah Muralitharan. Pathirana has been selected to play for the Rajasthan Royals in the company of big names in Indian cricket.

This enormously talented youngster is a product of Trinity which he represented with distinction as a brilliant allrounder, captaining the side in one year and was also awarded the coveted 'Cricket Lion' by the college on conclusion of his school cricketing career.

His feats in school cricket for the hill capital school is unravelled and some of them cannot be emulated while others will take a long time for beating.

A little known fact is that he is a world record holder in junior limited over cricket when he slammed 235 not out for Central Province in an under 16 inter provincial limited over cricket tournament match against Uva Province. His innings included 12 sixers and 34 fours. He was just 14 years at that time and a star was born.

As a sixteen-year-old he scored his first double century when he thumped a brilliant 228 not out in an inter-school match. At the age of 15 he had played his first Sara Trophy cricket match when he turned for kandy Youths Cricket Club and performed well. Perhaps he may be one of the youngest to play in this level of cricket.

He continued to perform well for Trinity College as a deadly left arm spinner and an aggressive batsman and often it was his aggression which led to his dismissal more than the efforts of the bowler concerned. During the last two of his school cricket, he could not play regularly for his school as he had to attend Junior National Pool practices which deprived him the opportunity of breaking more records in the school cricket arena. One season he played only four matches due to pool practices and junior tours abroad. Sachith Pathirana, one of the brightest stars in the national cricket arena will leave for India on Monday January 11 for a cricket development camp where one of the coaches will be former world record holder for the highest number of test wickets Australian Shane Warne. Later he will also play in a Twenty/20 junior international cricket tournament to be held in Bangladesh, Two years ago he narrowly missed being selected as the player of the tournament in a junior limited over cricket tournament held in Malaysia.

He has signed up with Colombo Cricket Club and helped them to win a junior national tournament and now plays for them in the Premier League. Probably he did the wise thing by going over to Colombo and play in the Premier League tournament as playing Sara Trophy cricket in Kandy will not take him anywhere national selection is considered. He will be just another weekend cricketer languishing in the cold in the other days of the week.

With the good performance shown by him in the Premier League matches, it is only a matter of time and before he walks into the national team perhaps as a replacement for Muttiah Muralitharan and also to give the much needed prop to the now brittle late middle order batting.