'Ari' a bold venture

Shirajiv SIRIMANE

With the war against terrorism close to an end, Aravinda's bold venture at taking cricket to the North is praiseworthy where the former Sri Lanka vice captain, still recognised by the international cricketing world as the finest ever batsman to be produced by Sri Lanka, is giving his bit to earmark latent talent from that region. The former super batsman is on a bold mission to bring cricket in the North into the mainstream.

In this direction, Aravinda, Sri Lanka's 1996 World Cup winning batsman, who struck an epic match winning century in the final against Australia to bring home one-day cricket's most elusive cup home, has through his "Aravinda de Silva Cricket Foundation" been busy fine-combing for talent from Jaffna.

Seven budding youngsters from Jaffna have been selected by the Aravinda De Silva Foundation to be included for the Super camp that would be held in Colombo next month to undergo training.

The average endurance level of Jaffna School boy cricketers are very high and they should be give given more guidance, opined Aravinda de Silva who was in Jaffna to conduct this course. De Silva said their endurance level of was the best from the camps done so far across the country.

Ex-Sri Lanka super batsman Aravinda de Silva (Centre) conducts a cricket coaching clinic in Jaffna to select seven players for a super camp to be held in Colombo.

He said that most of the selected Jaffna schoolboy cricketers were fast bowlers and having a good knowledge of the game. In addition to the 7 youth from Jaffna, over 60 cricketers from 9 other provinces would also attend the super camp to be conducted under the team of national coaches.

 "The cricketers if selected would get the opportunity to qualify for the under - 19 Cricket Youth World Cup," he said.The Jaffna Camp, where national coaches go around the country and conduct cricket camps was conducted in partnership with Security Forces of Jaffna and Government Peace Secretariat at St. John's College, Jaffna.Director Economics, Government Peace Secretariat, Rohantha Athukorala said that the feed back from the top Australian coach that did the camp was also encouraging.

"The authorities should now need to drive the same concept in other sports like swimming, basketball and soccer so that youth that comprise of 34 per cent of the population of 550,000 can be focused to productive and challenging tasks and build linkages to the South of the country", said Coca Cola Country Manager, Manish Chaturvedi also participated in the event.