Sajeewa was a Panadura product. He started schooling at St Johns Panadura and then went on to represent that famous school at Moratuwa, St Sebastian’s from the age of 11 years. In a second eleven match he was selected to play as a spinner, however the player who was designated to be the fast bowler in that team failed to turn up and Sajeewa got that opportunity and the rest is history.
He blazed a trail in the mid-nineties in the club circuit and in 1993 up to 1996 he was the best bowler capturing a bagful of wickets representing Sebastianites-Navy -Sebastianites in that order. Reports indicated that he was a line and length pace bowler who could bowl till ‘The cows come home.’Sajeewa had inherent stamina.
SRI LANKA CAP
After those brilliant performances with the ball he was awarded the Sri Lankan Cap at the age of 27.He had 10 years of club experience under his belt which stood him in good stead and as a result his debut was seamless.
Sajeewa was quick to point out that in his days fast bowlers played 8 to 10 years for Sri Lanka on a regular basis and there were no “always breakdowns!!” like nowadays not only in cricket but in other spheres as well.
According to Sajeewa, he is the proud owner of a World Record together with Chaminda Vaas and Nuwan Zoysa of being three left arm pacies playing in the same Test Team which was in 1996, another salient fact is that in 1997 he was the no 4 bowler in the ODI arena behind Lance Klusener, Shaun Pollock and Saqlain Mushtaq.
LOOKING TOWARDS INDIA
Sajeewa noted that one should look at our “Big Brother” for hot tips on coaching. The Indian coaches during the “field of play” are hardly seen, eg the coach comes only to take part in the team photograph and disappear leaving the captain to call the shots whereas the coaches here according to Sajeewa has all the say in the field of play and the captain is just a robot, Sajeewa emphasised the fact that this not the way to train a captain. He was point blank and got to the root of the matter, eg favouritism, which is rampant in school cricket now, even in my days it existed in a mild form pay backs were confined to a chocolate cake at best and that was that. The scale is much bigger now and you name it they get it!!. Sajeewa got so fed up with this state of affairs he was reluctantly compelled to get his talented son to stop attending practices.
Sajeewa made an interesting comparison of Indian cricket with Sri Lankan cricket, he stated that the Sri Lankan cricket was like an elevator going down where as the Indian cricket elevator is reaching the top floors.
According to Sajeewa the Indian young cricketers from the age of 13, played in conditions similar to the under 19 Standards, which meant that they are used the 66 feet length pitch as well as the normal cricket ball which weighs approximately 5.5 ozs. He pointed out that the Lankan lads played on a shorter pitch of 60 feet and gradually they scaled it up to 66 and they also used a ball lighter than the 5.5 oz ball. The advantage the Indian youngsters get from the longer length pitch was, noted by Sajeewa; They never try to lift the ball because the boundary was too long to hit sixes and there for they learned to play along the ground.
Another point was that they learned to run threes and even fours since the ropes were long. They also learnt how to perform the relay throw. The advantage of the heavier ball was that they learned how to flight the ball and pitch it further avoiding the short pitch deliveries.
Sajeewa was grateful to Burgher Recreation Club where he has been coaching for 15 years specialising in coaching young players. He also had a word of thanks to his present employers The Hatton National Bank where he had been a loyal servant for 22 years.
Sajeewa has two children a girl and a boy, the girl attended Sri Sumangala College Panadura and at present she is studying Medicine in Russia, the boy is attending his old school Sri Sumangala Panadura.
The six foot 2 inches tall Sajeewa de Silva, strong in personality, looked well composed and he had no further ideas of looking for greener pastures elsewhere, but would rather stay here to build a new generation of pace bowlers.
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