Sports
Herath has the potential to break the national record – Vithanage
by Reemus Feranndo
The men’s steeplechase witnessed a new champion after a long time at the recently conducted 98th National Athletics Championships. Eranda Udaya Bandara Herath who has been playing second fiddle to R.M.S. Pushpakumara for some time now, emerged from the shadow of the many time champion to claim his maiden title as he produced his personal best.
“It is a satisfying feeling to win the title against the champion,” said the 25 year old Herath in an interview with The Island.
“It is satisfying because of the circumstances under which we had to train due to the covid 19 pandemic,” said Herath.
The athlete trained by Sumith Prasanna Vithanage clocked 9:00.22 seconds to win, nearly eight seconds ahead of the reigning champion. His performance has earned him the 17th position in the Asian rankings.
The Army athlete who commenced training for this discipline as a school athlete had not even seen a steeplechase when he was first introduced to the challenging event by Vithanage.
“Vithanage Sir saw me hurdling during a practice session and introduced me to the event. That is how I started,” said Herath.
He first tasted victory in his last year as an Under-20 athlete when he clinched the title at the Junior National Championship in 2014. He produced a sub ten minutes feat in winning and he was also the winner of the Sir John Tarbet Senior Championships that year.
Three years later Herath once again clinched a title when he won the Under-23 steeplechase at the 2017 Junior Nationals.
Since then he had been competing against Pushpakumara for the national title. In 2017 he was placed second in the steeplechase at the Nationals and third at the Army Championship.
Herath joined the Army five years ago and was under the guidance of D.M. Dissanayake for one and half years before he rejoined Vithanage.
Vithanage who has trained him since he was a teenager considers his charge as a strong contender to break the national record which has remained unchanged for more than two decades.
“He has the potential to run under eight minutes and 45 seconds. Our target is to achieve that before long,” said Vithanage referring to GSP Mendis’ record mark created in 1998.
Vithanage had another success at the Nationals when his sprinter Fathima Shafiya Yamick was placed third in the women’s 100 metres and second in the 200 metres and will also bank heavily on Amesha Hettiarachchi to achieve World Under-20 Championship entry standards in the 400 metres hurdles when the junior events are held this year.
Brazil are the unlikely candidates to have claimed two cricket records as one of their bowlers took a record nine wickets – including five in a row – in their 189-run T20 Women’s International victory against Lesotho in Botswana.
Having won the toss on Thursday, at the BCA Kalahari Women’s T20 International Tournament, Brazil posted a daunting 202-8 with wicketkeeper Monnike Machado hitting 69 off 41.
The fun, for the Brazilians, was only just beginning, though, as Laura Cardoso claimed a hat-trick with the last three deliveries of her first over – the second of the Lesotho innings – to set in motion the incredible feat that eventually saw the Africans bowled out for 13.
The 21-year-old then continued her wicket-taking achievement with a Women’s T20 International first of five dismissals in a row as she struck with the first two balls of her second over. This was all part of claiming the first nine Lesotho wickets to fall, but being denied the chance to take all 10 after a change of bowling following her third over. Her final wicket was Ret’sepile Limema, who fell to the fifth ball of the fifth over, with Cardoso replaced for the following over at that end. Her nine wickets, nevertheless, is the best return in either men’s or women’s T20 internationals.
The right-arm seamer did, indeed, come close to another hat-trick, when she claimed wickets with the last two balls of her second over, which itself totalled four victims.
Cardoso, who has has taken 55 wickets in 48 T20 matches for Brazil, replaces Indonesia’s Rohmalia Rohmalia at the top of the Women’s T20 best bowling rankings, as she finished with figures of 3-2-4-9.
Rohmalia had claimed seven wickets in 2024 in a match against Mongolia in Bali. Only three other women have claimed seven in a T20 international.
The men’s record, and the overall in the format, had been held by Bhutan’s Sonam Yeshey after he took eight wickets for seven runs against Myanmar last year.
The previous record for the number of wickets in consecutive deliveries was four, and was jointly held with the most prominent occasion in women’s cricket being when Shakera Selman pulled off the feat for the West Indies against Pakistan in 2018. Afghanistan’s Rashid Khan and Sri Lanka’s Lasith Malinga are among the most notable bowlers from the men’s game to have claimed four consecutively in the format.
Although a huge winning margin, Brazil’s overall win does not compare with Argentina’s record after they beat Chile by 364 runs in 2023. The Argentinians had struck 427-1 to set up their victory.
Lesotho’s part in the record extends to no further than Cardoso’s haul, with the record-lowest total belonging to Mali, who were bowled out for 6 in 2019 by Rwanda.
Brazil, who lead the six-team tournament with five straight wins, play Mozambique on Friday.
[Aljazeera]
| Date | Match |
|---|---|
| May 3 | 1st ODI |
| May 6 | 2nd ODI |
| May 9 | 3rd ODI |
| May 12 | 1st T20I |
| May 14 | 2nd T20I |
| May 15 | 3rd T20I |
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