Sri Lanka's young outstation talent impresses Doug Walters

The Sri Lanka Airlines, which has traffic rights to Australia, has sponsored a series of cricket clinics in Colombo and the outstations for young hopefuls in the age groups 15, 16 and 17 years. These have been drawn from the schools' cricket teams which have Under 13, Under 15, under 17 and under 19 National Schools Competitions annually conducted by the Sri Lanka Schools Cricket Association. All Sri Lanka Cricketers starting from Arjuna Ranatunga, Aravinda de Silva, Muttiah Muralitharan and the rest have come up from this very successful system. It is continuously throwing up talented young cricketers.

In order to augment this system the Sri Lanka Airlines has started an innovative idea of bringing in Test cricketers of the past from abroad. At present in the Island is the contingent from Australia comprising Doug Walters, Geoff Lawson, Peter Philpott and the England Test allrounder Barry Knight. With them is the famous cricket journalist Peter Roebuck.

At a Press conference held yesterday at the Colombo Cricket Club, Doug Walters had this to say :- "I first came to Sri Lanka way back in 1969 as a member of Australian Team on its way to tour India. The talent that I saw 30 years ago was pretty good, but when I came back here after 3 decades with my colleagues, I find that Sri Lanka has done remarkably well in unearthing talent and again the giant strides Sri Lanka has made in both form of the game is amazing. You won the World Cup in 1996 beating us and again beat us in Colombo after we won the 1999 World Cup. That is some achievement . Your recent record in the Test arena is equally impressive beating England, Austalia, Zimbabwe and Pakistan in series wins during the last year. "

The two week long clinic for 65 outstation school boys is held in Colombo. Doug Walters is assigned to coach batsmen and Geoff Lawson the pacemen. Peter Philpott, now rated as the world's leading leg spin coach airing his views, said "I have seen more promising and encouraging spin bowlers with inborn talent in the past two hours than I have seen in the last two years as a talent scout in charge of identifying young spinners in Australia."

Geoff Lawson sounded the ambassador of peace for Australia." The past is all past. At the moment there is a good link between our two nations in cricket. I think the relationship between Australia and Sri Lanka at this point of time is very good" he said.

Sri Lankans will never forget the shabby treatment Muttiah Muralitharan received at the hands of Australian umpires and the spectators who yelled "chucker" every time he ran up to bowl at every venue in Australia.

Sri Lankans are highly appreciative of what these Australians veterans are doing for our youngsters. Some Sri Lankan school coaches, who were with their wards, evinced the hope that these coaches will be sponsored by the National Airline, Sri Lanka Airlines, for a follow up coaching stint within a year to see the development of the 65 cricketers.