Sri Lankan Deaf Team To Australia (25 Dec 1995)

Monday 25, December 1995

Lankan deaf cricket team to Australia

ESCO REHAB SRI LANKA based in Egodauyana, the pioneering nongovernmental national body which introduced, promoted and popularised sports for the disabled has chosen a 13-member team which will participate at the inaugural World Cup Deaf Cricket tournament to be held from December 26 to January 6 at Melbourne, Australia.

This is the first deaf leather ball cricket team in Sri Lanka and it was selected out of 114 applicants from various parts of the country who played softball cricket.

A pool comprising 17 Cricketers were given rigorous training by the coach D. J. N. Aponso of the Colombo Municipality.

The Sri Lanka`s deaf cricketers led by Asela Nalin Jayatilleke (captain) left the country on December 22 to join their counterparts from England, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

The matches will commence on Dec. 27.

According to Mr. M. Levett, A. M., president of the committee of sports for the deaf, Australia, sixty to seventy thousand spectators are expected to be in attendance at the Melbourne cricket grounds during the tea break of the first-day of the second Test between Australia and Sri Lanka played by "hearing`` teams.

ESCO REHAB SRI LANKA has represented the country in all the world events for the blind, deaf, physically handicapped and the mentally (intellectually) handicapped.

Sri Lanka Thilaka Tissa Kurukulanatha (secretary general, ESCO), Mr. T. Anver Dole (team manager), Mr. Jayalath Aponso (coach); and Mr. U. K. D. Gooneratne (sign-language interpreter) will accompany the team.

The Sri Lanka Team: Asela Nalin Jayatilleke (captain), Hemajith Vajira Kumara (vice-captain), Thilak Thushara Sumanadasa, Upul Piyaratne, Arun Kumar Perera, Sumith Tennekoone, Mohamed Naizer, Nelum Ariruwan, Mohamed Jawfer, Roshan Nalinda Fernando, Ajantha Sumith, Janaka Rohitha, Dhammika Udayakumara.

Source :: Lake House/Lanka Internet Services