Dubai: UAE’s Desert Cubs Cricket Academy came out with flying colours in schools’ tournaments in a tour Sri Lanka, which produces extremely keen competition at this level.
It is Sri Lanka’s schools cricket which has been responsible for their country’s tremendous success in international cricket, throwing up promising stars regularly. Desert Cubs promising cricketers from the age of 11 to 17 got an opportunity to not only exhibit their talent against Sri Lanka’s future stars but also leave an impression. While the Desert Cubs Under-15 team competed against schools like St Anne’s, St Peter’s and Ananda College, their Under-17 team contested against renowned teams like St Sebastian, Royal College and Thurstan College and finished third in their group.
Ananda College had produced star players like former Sri Lanka captain Arjuna Ranatunga and star opener Sidath Wettimuny. Speaking to Gulf News, Presley Polonnowita, the Head Coach of the Desert Cubs Cricket Academy said: “It was a great opportunity for our kids to test their skills against the top quality teams of this island nation which is famous for their school cricket structure. Some games even went in to the last ball, adding so much excitement for the tournament.”
What was impressive about the tour is that UAE youngsters fought hard in all the matches. “The matches were played in a 40 over format giving the kids loads of opportunities to settle down and build up an inning which is more important at this age rather than being strict to them in T20 formats,” added Polonnowita.
To inspire the youngsters, the players were given an opportunity to meet Wettimuny who made his mark through schools cricket. Addressing the UAE youngsters he said: “Cricket started as a gentlemen’s game and you players are the future representatives of the game and I am sure you will continue to play it with passion while maintaining high quality spirit on and off the field under any circumstances.”
Wettimuny, whose spectacular 194 at Lord’s against the formidable England attack, is even now talked about as one of the finest knocks in world cricket, said: “There are many things one can learn through participating in this beautiful game other than victories that can be achieved on the field.” The Desert Cubs Invitational tournament in Sri Lanka were managed by experienced Level 3 veteran coach Udayananda Perera and sponsored by Dubai Duty Free with Scoop Lubricants as co-sponsor.
The Desert Cubs teams were divided into Under- 11, Under-13, Under-15 and Under 17 categories. While the seniors were engaged in a tournament, the juniors had some friendly games in 25 and 30 over format in Kandy and Colombo. The top performers of the tour in various age categories were Sayed Rayan, Movindu Rupasinghe, Shoun Rogers, Pranav Kumar, Nomesh Dissanayake, Punjika Piyasiri, Neil Lobo, Dillon Bastians, Ashintha Silva Owais Sajjid, Waruna Perera, Nelukshan de Silva and Renaldi Dias.
