Sri Lanka team full of confidence - Sports Minister

by S.M. Jiffrey Abdeen, Kandy Sports Corr.

“The present performance is a pointer then Sri Lanka go out confidentially to win the World Cup which is to be staged in just 79 days from today”, said the Minister of Sports, Mahindananda Aluthgamge.

He made these observations when he addressed the large crowd which gathered to witness the Mini World Cup Six-a-Side softball cricket tournament at the Police grounds, Kandy yesterday. Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage said that Sri Lanka is now lying second in the rankings of limited over cricket and they recently beat Australia who are ranked number one. Thus Sri Lanka’s cricket is rising above and they should go out top favourites to win the World Cup for the second time.

He said that Sri Lanka is all geared to stage this World Cup along with India and Bangladesh. We have constructed two state-of-the-art cricket stadia at Pallekele and Hambantota and the third one at Khettarama has been upgraded. Each of these stadium could accommodate a crowd of 40,000 so the spectators should throng in their numbers not only to witness these matches but also to cheer our team to victory.

He said that the Mini World Cup is a starter or a forerunner to the World Cup and we must now itself prepare for it and it is around on interest would have reached a crescendo.

There will be later on a lot of Twenty20 cricket featuring a lot of foreign teams. He said that we played a Test match against West Indies at Pallekele and this will be only the beginning and more Test matches and One-day Internationals will be played at this venue to give the people of Kandy a surfeit of cricket.

Chief Minister of the Central Province Ekanayake said that Central Province is lucky to have two cricket stadiums one at Pallekele and the other at Dambulla and this should provide the cricket lovers with enough flavour of foreign cricket.