by Dhammika Ratnaweeraù
Sri Lanka’s domestic cricket crown for the year 2018 was won by Colombo Cricket Club (CCC) last week. CCC also was known as Gymkhana club at Maitland Crescent led by Ashan Priyanjan were on top at the Premier league cricket tournament to clinch this title after laps of 12 years. Last time CCC won this title in the 2006-07 season under the leadership of Leg spinner Nisitha Rupasinghe.
The jubilant CCC head coach Tharanga Dhammika the former Nalandian paceman said this time his team made a good effort to win this title. “we do not have big names in our player list. Only three national players Kusal Mendis, Lakshan Sandakan and Vishwa Fernando were with us but they missed most of this tournament due to national duties.” said coach Dhammika who dedicated his team’s success to the superb team effort and commitment by everyone involved in the tournament.
CCC has a long history and also named as a Test venue and played three test matches of which two against New Zealand in 1984 and one against Pakistan. They have already won league champions in five occasions. 1979/80 being the first time won this tile under the leadership of Micheal Tissera, then in 1984/85 under the captaincy from Roger Wijesuriya and in 1987/88 under the leadership of Owen Mottau who later became under 19 national coach and 1984/85 under the leadership of former National spinner Roger Wijesuriya.
CCC coach Tharanga Dhammika has been in service for the past four years and under his guidance, the club had already won Premier One- Day championship in 2016 and last year they had won the runners up title in T-20 tournamet.ù
“This year it was a culmination of the the good form of the players and the pay-off of the hard work we have been doing in the past few years, when we were able to win the Premier League Championship. For me this is a great achievement” said coach Dhammika giving out credits to all the players, supporting staff, ground staff and club officials headed by President Shammi Silva.
He said that a coach cannot do miracles and follow everything from the behind. “We can guide the players and it is up to them to play in the middle with due respect to what they are being instructed with responsibility. We did regular practices and it always hard training” added the CCC coach explaining that sometimes players think to do well only at the match without committing much at practice but at the end, they fail.
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