Most Popular All-Island Cricketer :

Kithuruwan to play for Surrey

By Leslie FERNANDO

CRICKET: Royal College allrounder Kithuruwan Vithanage, under 19 Sri Lanka Youth vice-captain is the OBSERVER-MOBITEL Most Popular Schoolboy Cricketer All-Island 2010. Kithuruwan, an aggressive left-hand batsman should go places in big time cricket.

Kithruwan, the Royal cricketer has been invited to play for Surrey in England in the Twenty20 Tournament. He is sponsored by Grey Nicolas of Surrey, England. Ravi de Silva is the Manager of Kithruwan.

He will be the Vice Captain of the SSC under-23 side for the coming season. Kithruwan was also conferred school colours at the Sri Lanka Schools Sports Association Awards presentation held on Wednesday.

Kithuruwan won the All Island Contest with a record-breaking total of 101,736 votes, having received 4,126 votes on the final coupon - number 22.

Shavinda Edirisuriya also of Royal, received a total of 100,824 votes, having received 2,693 votes. Meanwhile, Peterite Chathura Peiris came third with 97,492 votes.

Kithuruwan Vithanage also won the Best Batsman's Award in the OBSERVER-MOBITEL Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year 2010 All-Island Contest. He played a lesser number of inter-school matches for Royal as he was involved in the Sri Lanka Under 19 of Australia, Tri-Nation Tournament in South Africa and ICC Under 19 World Cup in New Zealand, Tri-Nation Tournament in Sri lanka.

This season Vithanage - a left-hand batsman, scored 380 runs for Royal in lesser number of matches. He stroked a brisk 44 not out in just 19 balls to win two awards - Best Batsman, Most Number of sixes at the Royal-Thomian inaugural Twenty20 played in March this year. In the Munchi Tournament 2010, Kithuruwan totalled 225 runs.

He also played in the SLC Combined XI in the Provincial Tournament and scored 123 runs, with a highest score of 53 runs against Kandurata.

In Twenty20 Tournament, Kithuruwan represented Combined XI and scored 97 runs. He scored 64 runs from 30 balls including 6 towering sixes and 5 fours against Ruhuna.

He was selected for the National Youth Team, following a tremendous season for Royal College in last year's inter-school tournament. He amassed over 1,000 runs, including two centuries and ten half centuries. He is also a leg-spin bowler and standby wicket-keeper. He has already been included in the Sri Lanka Development Pool.