The former Muthuwella Sports Club, Nomads Cricket Club, Nondescripts, Colombo Cricket Club, Nugegoda Sports Club, Raddoluwa Cricket Club, Burgher Recreation Club Cricketer, the present Head Cricket Coach of St. Anthony’s College, Wattala Safraz Farook is an Australian Advanced Level Two Coach
He never played school cricket but at the age of 12 he joined Muthuwella Sports Club and played for the Division Three Daily News Trophy Cricket Tournament. There he was coached by Keerthi Gunaratne, Cani Silva, Anaz Suhbir and Saman Hewawitharana from time to time. The senior players of the club too helped him. When he played for the under 23 Sara Trophy team his coach was Mr. Boteju.
From Nomads he joined Nondescripts Cricket Club and played in the under 23 tournament under Rumesh Ratnayake and from there he shifted to Colombo Cricket Club and played in the under 23 Premier League tournament and he was coached by Hemantha Devapriya, Owen Mottau and Jerome Jayaratne and Roshan Mahanama helped him in many ways. Due to a major injury he kept away for some time and after recovering he joined Nugegoda Sports Club and Raddoluwa Sports Club and he commenced playing Sara Cricket and when playing for Old Antonians they emerged Champions. He played in the Premier League and in the year 2009 he joined BRC and played league cricket up to 2011 and he was named as the CEAT Best All Rounder in 2009.
Then he gave up playing cricket and took up to coaching and to date there are plenty of cricketers in all formats who learnt cricket from him. The main advantage of his coaching is he can speak in all three languages to his charges. He studied cricket coaching firstly from Lionel Mendis and he worked under him at the Nondescripts Cricket Club. His first coaching stint was with under 13 cricketers of Wesley College for nearly five years and Wesleyites clinched the under 13 championship. Then he joined St. Joseph’s College, Wattala and served for two years and later was promoted as the Head Coach and coached the young Colombo Zahirians.
He commenced coaching at club level and coached Nugegoda Sports Club and they were the runners up of T20 league and Anthonian Sports Club in Sara and Premier tournaments and in 2009 they emerged
champions in Sara Trophy and from there he left to Australia to take up a coaching stint at a Sub District Club, New Port in Villam Town.
As a player cum coach he captained the side . After returning home he played and coached at Matugama Sports Club in Sara Trophy and later at Malays Cricket Club in Sara Trophy from there he coached BRC in the Premier League and Badureliya and Panadura Sports Club, Mercantile C Division and MAS Active in Mercantile A Division and several national players came under him and during this period they won two championships in Knock Out league and in one were runners up.
Presently he is coaching St. Anthony’s College, Wattala and has produced several cricketers of fame so far. He had a word of praise for the cricket loving Rector Rev. Fr. Marl Warunashantha Fernando and Rev. Fr. Sajith Aruna and Rev. Fr. Nuwan Perera and also a few old boys including Travis Fernando, Prashantha Vishwanath and messers Mahesh and Manoj Hemarathna. He thanked all who supported him to come up the ladder especially brothers Lionel and Nelson Mendis and former Test Captain Arjuna Ranatunga.
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