Unranked Uganda emerge champions with fine display:

Lankan netballers finish fourth in Nations Cup

By Prince Gunasekara reporting from Singapore

Sri Lanka finished in fourth place of the Nations Cup netball championship as they went down fighting against formidable Papua New Guinea 60-48 in their match played at Toa Sports Hall, Singapore on Saturday.

The unranked Uganda stunned the netball world thrashing hosts nation Sinagpore by 52 goals to 29 in the final worked off on Saturday at the same venue. Uganda, had already beaten Singapore in the round-robin stage and hosts suffered two consecutive defeats against the unranked African nation.

Sri Lanka’s best performance in the Nations Cup tournament, is the fourth place in the previous championship and had to be satisfied with the same result in the eighth edition of the six-nation tournament this year.

Sri Lanka fielded an inexperienced squad with several new players and it was visible that in the round robin stage, in the previous match, Lankans were storming towards the end of the second quarters, but showed a pathetic display in the third and fourth quarters, handing over the game to Uganda 75-38 on Friday.

At the end of the first quarter, Sri Lanka were leading 14-13. Papua New Guinea, giving a spirited fight back led the way towards 16-12 lead at the end of the second quarter. In the decisive fourth quarter, Papua New Guinea stormed to victory ending the quarter 20-9. Papua New Guinea won the match 60-48 winning the third place of the one-week tournament.

Sri Lanka’s unstoppable goal shooter Tharjini Sivalingam scored 42 goals in 47 attempts while Semini Alwis recorded six goals in nine attempts. Due to Lankans’ failure in passing the ball, Papua New Geniua succeeded 62 times in 79 attempts. It was interesting that Lankan goal shooter Tharjini Sivalingam, goal attacker Semini Alwis, centre Thilini Wattegedara, wing attacker Marisha Fernando, goal defender Gayani Dissanayake, goal keeper Thisala Algama and wing defender Naujali Rajapakse were competing without any replacements throughout the game.

After, winning the fourth place of the championship, Sri Lanka coach Somitha Alwis said that she was happy with Lankans’ performance. As the team comprised inexperienced players, who had a short period of training at home before the tournament.

“We played a brilliant game of netball. I am happy on inexperienced players’ performances and it was visible that the lack of experience and lack of training deprived us going further. We hope to give a much better display in next year’s championship,” Alwis said.