Palitha fetched cricketers from rural areas and brought them up!

by Ranjan Anandappa

Former Dharmapala College cricketer and renowned cricket coach T.K. Palitha, although not in the limelight these days, have done yeoman service to his old school and club Old Dharmapalians SC and aired his views and experience as a cricket coach.

The 67-year-old veteran who had represented many top clubs playing at the highest level like SSC, Saracens SC, Nomads SC, CCC and later Old Dharmapalians, is a strict disciplinarian who has shown the right path to his pupils while coaching and it has helped them to reach great heights.

His views on cricket was the familiar theme of fetching the players from the rural areas which has an abundance of talent, still not discovered.

"Take the present Under 19 team, the majority of the players are from the outstation schools. And only a few from Colombo, sometimes those few players representing the Colombo schools have been absorbed from an outstation school spotting his talent." he said.

Palitha toured Australia in 1964 with the Natiional School Team with a talented bunch of players like Bernard Rulach, (St.Mary's, Dehiwela) Shanthi Peiris and Wasantha Seneviratne (Nalanda), Lal Rodrigo (St.Anthony's Wattala), R.Boustead (St.Mary's, Dehiwela). The team was coached by the late Gerry Gooneratne and Palitha gave a fine display as an opening batsman and a wicket-keeper.

An aggressive opener

An aggressive opener and a courageous wicket-keeper who is confident in standing up at the wickets while a paceman is in operation with the new ball. He once caused embarrassment to the then Sri Lanka paceman Tony Opatha who was the main front line pace bowler for Sri Lanka.

After leaving school, Palitha took up the job as coach of his Alma Mater, Dharmapala from 1977 to 1995. He produced a number of promising cricketers.

Among them were Pasan Wanasinghe, Ravindra Wimalasiri (now an International Umpire), Deepal Gunawardene, Chinthaka Jayasinghe (Who became the Sunday Observer Schoolboy Cricketer), Gamini Perera and Senaka Angulugaha who represented Air Force in division one cricket and was also a member of the National Cricket pool.

In 1986 he was instrumental in Dharmapala winning the then prestigious Coca-Cola Limited Overs Trophy for schools. Dharmapala beat Trinity in the quater-finals, Ananda in the semi finals and St.Peter's in the final at the SSC grounds.

Palitha helped Dilhara to master slow ball

In 1996 he was a Tournament Committee Member of SLC and also the Head Coach at De Mazenod College, Kandana.

This was the year that Sri Lanka paceman Dilhara Fernando was a member of De Mazenod College team. Fernando who was pretty quick even at that time had Palitha adding more variety and taught Dilhara how to master the slow ball which he later bowled so effectively in his cricket career.

Palitha said that his cricketing journey was not a bed of roses. Even in school, there were lots of challenges with other talented players vying for honours. And later, while playing for clubs."

Palitha still holds the ground record at Dharmapala scoring 209 against Sri Jayewardenepura, Kotte (Formerly Christian College, Kotte).