National Cricket Awards honour domestic talent

By Madushka Balasuriya

The annual Dialog National Cricket Awards were held on Monday evening at a grand ceremony at the Taj Samudra in Colombo, where several of Sri Lanka’s domestic cricketers were feted for their performances during the 2015/2016 season.

Awards were handed out to the best batsmen, bowlers and all-rounders in all of the major men’s and women’s tournaments which took place over the last year, while special awards were also handed out to umpires and match referees. 

In the Premier League Tournament, winners Tamil Union Cricket and Athletics Club’s Tharanga Paranavithana and Dhananjaya de Silva took home the Best Batsman and Best All-rounder awards respectively, while Lakshan Sandakan of Colombo Cricket Club was named Best Bowler. 

Danushka Gunathilaka (Sinhalese Sports Club), Farveez Maharoof (Nondesripts Cricket Club) and Sachitra Serasinghe (Moors Sports Club) took home the Best Batsman, Best Bowler and Best All-rounder awards respectively in the Premier Limited Over Tournament. In the Premier T20 Tournament, Dasun Shanaka (SSC) won Best Batsman, Thilina Thushara (CCC) won Best Bowler, and Seekkuge Prasanna (Army Sports Club) took home the best All-rounder award.

Meanwhile in the Division 1 of the Women’s Cricket league Shashikala Siriwardana (Navy Sports Club) was awarded Best Batter and Best Allrounder, while Oshadi Ranasinghe (Airforce Sports Club) took home the Best Bowler accolade.It was announced however, that this would be the last year that awards were handed out to clubs in the age group categories, with Sri Lanka Cricket President Thilanga Sumathipala revealing that from next year onwards only district and provincial cricket would be segregated into different age categories. “This is in order to shorten the path to the national team for a young player. A child playing for a rural village will now be able to play for a school team, district and then provincial team; there will be a clear path to the national team,” explained Sumathipala, whose administration has been making a concerted effort in recent months to improve the quality of domestic and youth cricketers in the country.