Sports

Wickramasinghe comes up with guidelines to train during the pandemic

Published

5 years ago

2020/10/27

Training programmes of a number of top track and field athletes were interrupted at various training venues due to Covid 19 concerns last week. Some of the interruptions were reported in areas where no new Covid 19 positive cases were reported. With the second wave of pandemic starting to disrupt daily life, sports training too is set to suffer badly. But senior track and field coach Upali Wickramasinghe believes that training can proceed without an interruption even during the pandemic by changing the coaching or training style.

Wickramasinghe in his instructions for coaching during the Covid 19 pandemic lists out important guidelines to follow during training, pre training and post training.

Being equipped with a clearance certificate issued by health authorities and submitting parental consent with regard to training juniors will help avoid disappointments at venue entrances according to Wickramasinghe. Sanitizing participants and checking their temperature are the other prerequisites before starting training.

Maintaining social distancing, limiting the training to small groups or individuals, avoiding physical contact (no high-fives, no handshakes) and prohibiting of spitting and clearing of nasal respiratory secretion are the instructions for sportsmen engaged in non contact sports.

Training can be continued even for minimal contact games by classifying training areas into three or four and sticking to training partners and avoiding body blocking.

Training for full body contact games can be done by focusing more on promoting individual skills and technique, utilizing alternative practice equipment, prohibiting sharing of personal equipment and making sanitization mandatory even during training.

Disinfection of training equipment like javelin, shot put, relay batons, shuttlecocks and balls is a major requirement immediately after training. Wickramasinghe also advices participants to exit venues immediately after their training schedules are completed. He also advices not to share personal equipment like rackets, helmets shin – guards, water bottles and T – Shirts.

A former national athlete, Upali Wickramasinghe has been in the field of coaching after his retirement as a Major in the Sri Lanka Army. He has produced a number of top national athletes and was the first coach of Olympian Anuradha Indrajith Cooray, who holds the Sri Lanka National record in the men’s marathon. (RF)

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Sports

Sri Lanka cement top spot with crushing win

Published

31 mins ago

2026/01/21

Thilina Walpola

Vimath Dinsara played a captain's knock for Sri Lanka

ICC Youth World Cup

Sri Lanka cemented the top spot of Group A points table with a crushing win over Ireland in their second match of the ICC Youth World Cup in Windhoek on Monday.‎The team led by Vimath Dinsara have the heighest net run rate (3.09) of the tournament following their 106 runs victory.

‎While Sri Lanka lead Group A with two wins followed by Australia, who have played only one match, India (Group B), England (Group C) and Afghanistan (Group D) are the leading teams in the other Groups after having won two matches each.

‎Mahanama College all-rounder Dulnith Sigera and Lyceum International speedster Rasith Nimsara were mainly responsible for the distruction as they shared seven wickets between them to restrict Ireland to 161 runs. Sigera completed notable figures of 4.1-0-19-4, while Nimsara ended up with three wickets.

‎Earlier, after the in-form openers were dismissed cheaply skipper Vimath Dinsara held the middle order together with a top score of 95 runs for Sri Lanka to post 267 for five wickets.

‎Ireland’s new ball bowlers dismissed Dimantha Mahavithana and Viran Chamuditha for one digit scores after Sri Lanka decided to bat first. The Sri Lankan openers had posted a record breaking first wicket stand against Japan in their first World Cup encounter at the same venue two days earlier.

‎Sri Lanka were 59 for three wickets when Royal College batsman Dinsara joined Kavija Gamage to steady the innings with a stand of 80 runs. While Kingswood batsman made 49 before being run out, Dinsara went on to add another hundred runs partnership with Mahanama batsman Chamika Heenatigala.

‎Dinsara was dismissed five runs short of the three figure mark in the 46th over.

‎Heenatigala remained unbeaten to post 51 in 53 balls.

‎Dinsara’s knock which came in 102 balls included six fours and a six.

‎For Ireland Oliver Riley took two wickets.

Sports

Leaving out KJP is a no-brainer

Published

31 mins ago

2026/01/21

Thilina Walpola

Caption: Kusal Janith Perera

Indications are that Sri Lanka will head into the T20 World Cup without Kusal Janith Perera and that decision may well draw the curtains on his international career. KJP turns 36 in August and if he chooses to walk off into the sunset soon, few will be shocked.

But is this really the right call? The selectors, the only voices that matter, clearly think so. A sizeable chunk of the public, however, remains unconvinced.

At his best, KJP is as clean a striker as you’ll find, a batsman who clears the front leg and goes over the top rather than nudging for singles. That high-octane approach comes with baggage: live by the sword, die by it. Low scores arrive more often than he’d like. Yet the flip side is priceless, he can win games single-handedly. Only last year he smashed a T20I hundred in New Zealand, a feat achieved by just three other Sri Lankans. That alone puts him in rare air.

Yes, the runs dried up after that purple patch. But when the pressure cooker is on and the margins are razor thin, players with big-match temperament are worth their weight in gold.

What makes the decision harder to swallow is the replacement. If KJP had been swapped for a bottom-hand heavy batter built for the death overs, the logic might hold. Instead, he has made way for a top-hand operator in Dhananjaya de Silva, a square peg for a round hole in the shortest format.

Sri Lanka, uniquely, seem determined to juggle three captains across formats and then squeeze all three into the T20 side. That thinking, to put it mildly, is flawed. Balance goes out the window, roles blur and the team ends up batting with the handbrake half on.

The bigger question is timing. Why press the panic button with the World Cup at the doorstep? This Dhananjaya de Silva experiment has been tried before and found wanting. Reheating yesterday’s leftovers on the game’s biggest stage feels like tempting fate.

Little wonder Sri Lanka have become a laughing stock. Cast your mind back to the 2019 World Cup, when England captain Eoin Morgan delivered a barb that still stings. Asked if Jofra Archer was the tournament’s surprise package, Morgan replied, “I think Sri Lanka are the surprise package.”

“I’ve been playing international cricket for over a decade,” he added, “and I’ve never come across some of these guys.”History, it seems, is in danger of repeating itself.

by Rex Clementine ✍️

Sports

Red-hot Royal Challengers Bengaluru stay perfect ain 20nd march into playoffs

Published

20 hours ago

2026/01/20

Priyan

Gautami Naik blazed 73 off 55 deliveries ( BCCI)

Gauttami Naiks’s 73 and a combined effort from their bowlers powered Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) to a comprehensive win against Gujarat Giants sealing their playoffs spot in WPL 2026. RCB maintained their perfect record in the tournament, winning five games in a row to become only the second team after the Mumbai Indians in 2023 to achieve this feat; they also posted their biggest win by runs (61) in the tournament.

Playing the first match of the season at the Kotambi Stadium ing Vadodara, RCB recovered from 9 for 2 to post 178 for 6 thanks to Naik’s half-century and handy contributions from Richa Ghosh and Radha Yadav. In return, Giants could only make 117 for 8, losing their second match in a row to RCB.

It wasn’t an easy start for RCB. Renuka Singh struck with the final ball of the opening over, dismissing Grace Harris, who chipped a simple catch to mid-on. Georgia Voll, who made her RCB debut in the previous game and made a fifty, followed soon after, attempting a cut and losing her stumps.

Giants captain Ash Gardner brought herself on, eyeing a favourable match-up against Smriti Mandhana, but Mandhana countered her with a couple of boundaries. Naik at the other end took some time to get going. Her first boundary came off a drive, before a pick-up shot over deep square leg signalled her intent. But even after that, she was moving at just under run a ball. With the duo slowly rebuilding, they brought up their fifty-run stand at the end of the eighth over.

But Gardner returned in the ninth and showed why she dominated the match-up against Mandhana, removing her for the fourth time in the WPL in eight innings.

With Naik getting on with the rebuild, she also found the gaps occasionally. She got to her fifty off 42 balls as she became the first uncapped Indian player in the WPL to hit a half-century, also surviving a dropped catch shortly after. Ghosh, meanwhile, upped the tempo, hitting three sixes in her 20-ball stay before she was caught at long-on off a full toss, which she reviewed for no-ball to no avail.

After a solid start with the ball, Giants let the momentum slip away, conceding 94 runs in the middle overs. They also went on to concede 40 runs off the last four, with Radha Yadav and Shreyanka Patil taking Gautam for four fours in the last over. Giants were also sloppy on the field and conceded 21 runs as extras on the day, the joint second-most by a team in the WPL.

If Lauren Bell doesn’t get you, Sayali Satghare will. Giants may have escaped the first over from the clinical Bell, but lost both openers cheaply in the second over to Satghare – Beth Mooney bowled for 3 and Sophie Devine holing out for a duck.

It was then Bell’s turn as she got one to swing back in to knock Kanika Ahuja’s stumps over, leaving Giants at 5 for 3 at that point. Anushka Sharma, who was returning from an injury, then timed a few boundaries to perfection but could not build on the start, slicing a Nadine de Klerk slower ball to Radha. Giants went on to lose their next two batters cheaply, reeling at 56 for 6.

Chasing 163 off the final six overs, the equation was steep, but Gardner found her rhythm after a stuttering start. She took Radha for three boundaries and launched a big six off Bell to raise a fighting half-century. Satghare, however, returned to end Gardner’s resistance and finish with three wickets, as Giants eventually slipped to a big defeat.

Brief scores:

Royal Challengers Bengaluru Women 178 for 6 in 20 overs (Smriti Mandhana 26, Gautami Naik 73, Rich Ghosh 27, Radha Yadav 17; Renuka Singj 1-27, Kashvee Gautam 2-38, Ashleigh Gardner 2-43, Sophie Dev8ne 1-25) beat Gujarat Giants Women 117 for 8 in 20 overs (Anushka Sharma 18, Ashleigh Gardner 54, Bharati Ful,ali 14, Tanuja Kanwar 11*; Lauren Bell 123, Sayal8 Satghare 3-21, Nadine de Klerk 2-17, Radha Yadav 1-34, Shreyanka Patil 1-19) by 61 runs

(Cricinfo)