Central Province produced a fine sportsman and sports administrator, Z.M.Zarook who represented Vidyartha College,Kandy in the fifties, in Athletics, Cricket, Football and hockey. It was in Cricket that Zarook first showed signs of ability when he scored 62 runs in the inaugural ‘Big Match’ against St.Sylvesters’ College in 1958 and helped Vidyartha win that historic game by an innings under the captaincy of T.B.Wijesinghe.
However after leaving School, it was in Rugby that he really shone and represented Kandy Sports Club between 1965 and 1969 playing under Captains, Y.C.Chang, Jayantissa Ratwatte, the late Denzil Kobbekaduwa. His Rugby Coaches were Maurice Perera and Dr.Sangakkara. Having joined the Kandy Municipal council he represented KMC at Cricket between 1963 and 1965 and had a score of 192 against the Health Dept. of KMC.
It was not only playing Rugby and Cricket, Zarook became a qualified Rugby and Cricket Coach as well. He also qualified as a Cricket Umpire and is a member of the Central Province Cricket Umpires Association. As a Cricket Coach, he first started with Gampola Zahira College in the late Seventies and switched over as Coach of Juniors of Madeena Central College, Madawala from 1984 to 1992 and Madeena Central became Under 15 Champions in the Division III Tournament in 1985 and in 1986 became Runners-up in the Division II tourney.
Coaching of Rugby too occupied a special place in Zarook’s assignments and he first started with Gampola Zahira College from 1978 to 1980 and then switched on to coaching Rugby in Kingswood College, Kandy from 1981 to 1989 and then Kingswood became Champions in the Tyrell Muttiah Trophy Tournament in 1981 and later became All Island Sevens Champs in 1986. He also coached Dharmaraja College, Kandy in late eighties upto 1991. At Kingswood he produced some fine Rugby players like Ananda Kasturiarachchi, Ibrahim Brothers. and Lalith Wijeratne and from Dharmaraja Indrajith Bandaranayake.
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