Lanka News – Lanka Gazette – Sri Lanka News Portal

Two days after accusing Sri Lanka Cricket interim committee officials of corruption, Sports Minister Chandrasiri Bandara Ratnayake did a complete U-turn and decided to retain the top three officials who run cricket administration in this country. By this surprise act of his, the Sports Minister not only brought the ire of the entire Sri Lanka media upon him, but made himself look a complete ass in the eyes of the Lankan public.

The media which had been continuously spotlighting on the irregularities occurring in the SLC administration since former Sri Lanka leg-spinner DS de Silva was appointed chairman over an year ago, looked to the new Sports Minister Ratnayake as a man of action who brooked no nonsense and would put right the wrongs.The Minister started off on the right note by appointing a new cricket selection panel headed by former World Cup winning star Aravinda de Silva, and much was expected from him when he addressed a media conference at SLC headquarters last Monday to introduce the new selection panel.

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By Hafiz MarikarThe eagerly awaited confrontation between Kandy SC and Navy SC will take place at the Welisara grounds today. With the weather keeping fine, a good game is in store for rugby fans. This match was to be played on Saturday but, on a request made by the Navy chief, it was postponed by a day.

It will be interesting to see what type of rugby both sides will dish out today as they are two very good teams playing at their best and have won all the games played so far.

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Trinity recovered from their shocking 15-18 defeat against St. Anthony’s last week to drub Isipathana 28-20 to boost their morale ahead of their traditional Bradby Shield encounter against Royal next week in a President’s Trophy Singer Schools Division I A match played at Havelock Park yesterday.The control of the game shifted occasionally to both ends by whiskers until the final moments of the game making it a thrilling affair. However after holding a slight 21-20 lead 12 minutes before the final whistle, flanker Shannan Armstrong’s spectacular breakaway try in the last minute sealed the match in favour of Trinity to give them a timely motivation for the upcoming match against their traditional rivals in Colombo. The game was decided on conversions and Trinity recorded 4 tries, 1 conversion and 2 penalties against 2 tries, 2 conversions and 2 penalties by Isipathana.

Playing under pressure the hosts were given a rude shock when Trinity skipper and No.8 Damith Dissanayake gave an early warning by breaching through the Isipathana defence to score a try in the very first minute of the game. It was unconverted. Within 10 minutes Isipathana managed to shift the pressure into their opponent’s territory and as a result emerged successful in scoring a well earned try through prop forward Dhanushka Sooriyarachchi. It was converted by fullback Malik Jumad and Isipathana led 7-5 but Trinity retaliated in the 38th minute through centre Kanchana Ramanayake regain the lead 8-7 at half time.

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PARIS: Sixth seed Andy Roddick was stunned by an inspired performance from Russian qualifier Teimuraz Gabashvili, the world number 114, in the third round of the French Open on Saturday. Gabashvili won 6-4, 6-4, 6-2, having never previously progressed beyond the second round of a Grand Slam, and will meet Spanish ninth seed David Ferrer or Austrian 22nd seed Juergen Melzer for a place in the quarterfinals.

Gabashvili’s compatriot Mikhail Youzhny, the 11th seed, will face French eighth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the fourth round after completing a 2-6, 7-6 (7/4), 6-2, 6-3 win over Serbia’s Viktor Troicki held over from Friday. World number three Novak Djokovic survived a second-set lapse before beating Romania’s Victor Hanescu 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 and book his place in the fourth round. In a seesaw performance, the Serbian pumped his fists and smashed his racket onto the ground as he struggled to break Hanescu’s resilience on Centre Court.Ninth seed David Ferrer fell to a surprise 6-4, 6-0, 7-6 defeat by Austria’s Jurgen Melzer in the third round. The Spaniard, a finalist in Rome earlier in the claycourt season, never got to grips with the Austrian’s pace from the back of the court and was two sets down in barely an hour.

In the women’s section top seed Serena Williams survived a worrying mid-match health scare to defeat Russia’s 29th seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-1, 1-6, 6-2 and reach the last 16. The American world number one, who was the 2002 champion here, required treatment courtside after slipping at 0-5 down in the second set, having cruised through the opener.

By M Naushad AmitAs the President’s Trophy Singer League rugby tournament reaches the climax with almost 6 weeks of play being completed, St. Joseph’s has made steady progress in the Division I B by winning all their matches in the competition. The Josephians who returned to the ‘B’ group after failing to make an impact in the top group are once against on track to move up to the pinnacle again. Collectively all the players have contributed for St. Joseph’s to achieve the unblemished record they are enjoying currently but the team has a couple of playmakers who throw in the extra energy. Fullback Mayura Sanjeewa is one of those who could be rated as an asset to St. Joseph’s rugby this season.

“I want to see my team end up as group champions with an unbeaten record. We have got 3 more games before we wind up our league campaign and the way things are going on right now we will be able to gain promotion back to the top division. I’m honoured to be one of the contributors for St. Joseph’s,” Sanjeewa who is more of a team man stated. For Sanjeewa however, Colombo was not a familiar place two years back. After completing his GCE O/L exam and obtaining flying colours he decided to make his move to Colombo from his hometown Galle for better prospects in education. He was a student of St. Aloysius’ College, Galle before moving to St. Joseph’s for his GCE A/L.

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The General Secretary, Table Tennis Association of Sri Lanka and Joint Secretary, Old Boys Association, St John’s College, Nugegoda conducted the very first coaching camp for Jaffna’s table tennis players on May 15. Twenty children from St John’s College, Jaffna participated at the coaching camp organised by Revd N Jameson Gnanaponrajah, Principal of St John’s College Jaffna.

On the same day at Central College Jaffna about 50 players participated from seven schools in a coaching camp organised by J Mohan, Secretary, Jaffna District Table Tennis Association. The coaching camp was sponsored by the Old Boys Association, St John’s College, Nugegoda.The 2nd Jaffna district table tennis coaching camp was held on May 28 at Central College, Jaffna. The coaching camp was organised by J Mohan and three coaches from the Table Tennis Association of Sri Lanka Chandana Perera, General Secretary of TTASL, Thushara Sampath, Secretary, Sabaragamuwa TTA and Prabath Priyantha, Secretary, Ratnapura District TTA conducted the coaching camp.

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Gamini Soysa, the only Sri Lankan trained in the motherland of karate, Okinawa, will leave for the city on June 1 (Tuesday) to attend special training, a seminar and to meet several grand masters to gather information about karate, history, philosophy and tradition which he needs to publish a book.

Sri Lanka’s pioneer in Okinawan Karate, Soysa trained in the art of Shorin ryu Karate (Shaolin style) a major ryuha, in 1984, which he introduced to Sri Lanka and India, So far many Instructors have graduated under him.

Fifty-nine-year old Soysa holds the 8th degree black belt in Okinawan karate and 7th degree black belt in Renbukai Japanese karate, and is the only Sri Lankan who holds such a black belt (dan) in karate, awarded from Okinawa and Japan.

Shihan (Master) Soysa has dedicated over 36 years of his life teaching karate in Sri Lanka and many parts of India. He said, that not too many karatekas, not even Instructors, know why most Katas (forms of karate) end at the same spot that they started? This is very important from a philosophical point of view. When we come into life we enter with nothing, and when we leave, we leave with nothing. In other words, by starting the kata and ending the kata on the same spot, we are physically realising this important philosophical lesson. We learn from this that what we do when we are here on earth is very important, so no matter what it is that we do, we must always do our very best and give our100 percent all the time.

Daya Sahabandu was undoubtedly the best left-arm spin bowler produced by Sri Lanka. But to get there was not all that easy. It was a long hard struggle and nothing came to him on a platter. His career figures doesn’t do any justice to the way he performed because he belonged to an era when international cricket was few and far between and the domestic division I Sara trophy cricket he played for more than two decades for Nomads and NCC didn’t carry weight of a first-class status tag. Many cricketers, even after Sahabandu had long retired, underwent that handicap until 1988 when the Sri Lanka Cricket Board eventually granted first-class status to its major domestic tournaments.

So nowhere in the record books would you find under Sahabandu’s name that he became only the third spinner from Asia after Pakistan’s Intikhab Alam and India’s Bishen Singh Bedi to take 1000 wickets in domestic ‘first-class’ cricket. Alam and Bedi of course had the advantage of playing for English county sides to boost their tally whereas Sahabandu’s efforts were restricted to division I club cricket. The domestic cricket that Sahabandu played was not recognised as first-class because matches were of less than three days duration, either one and a half or two days. But despite the short time frame of these matches Sahabandu in 19 and a half seasons still managed to squeeze out 6552.1 overs (1119 maidens) and take 1048 wickets at an average of 14.11 from 253 matches for Nomads and NCC. The majority of his wickets were taken while playing for Nomads since 1963/64. He came out of retirement in 1985 to play a few matches for NCC at the age of 45 because Ranjith Fernando, the former NCC and Sri Lanka stalwart invited him as some of their players were away on national duty.

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Before welcoming the new cricket selection committee headed by former Sri Lanka batting supremo Aravinda de Silva, one must first congratulate the new Sports Minister Chandrasiri Bandara Ratnayake for having the courage to replace the former set of selectors who had a rather unusually extended run which eventually led to them losing faith with the cricket loving public.

To say that the Sanath Jayasuriya selection played a part in the sacking of the previous selection committee headed by former Sri Lanka fast bowler Ashantha de Mel would be more to the point, although there were other issues as well that contributed to their removal from office (De Mel and Don Anurasiri having served the longest for more than five years). Two members Chaminda Mendis and Vinothen John served in the committee only for a very short time having been appointed early this year.

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Royal failed to carry the inspiration of providing a surprise shock to St Peter’s last weekend (losing 22-20) when they were soundly beaten 27-5 by Isipathana in their President’s Trophy Singer Schools Division I A rugby league match played for the Milroy Fernando Trophy at Havelock Park yesterday.

Isipathana who showed vast improvement following two defeats at the start of the league recorded their fourth straight win to regain the trophy after a lapse of a year. They scored 4 tries out of which 2 were converted and a penalty against Royal’s solitary try.

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