There is no doubt that Moratuwa schools have produced some of the most outstanding cricketers who have brought honour and fame to the country over the years.
On Saturday, Twenty-two-year old Praveen Jayawickrama joined that long list of elite cricketers with a fascinating performance at the Pallekele Stadium in Kandy.
The promising left-arm spinner made an instant impact as he mesmerised the Bangladesh batsmen to return excellent bowling figures of six wickets for 92 on the third day of the second Test.
His performance had a great amount of significance as he turned a new leaf in Sri Lankan Test history while claiming the best figures on debut.
With this effort, Jayawickrama easily beat the previous best bowling performance for Sri Lanka on debut held by Upul Chandana who took six for 179 against Pakistan way back in 1999.
The former schoolboy of St. Sebastian’s College has already turned out to be a sensation in the Sri Lankan bowling armoury and has justified his selection in the team.
He was of course, grafted into the Test team as a replacement to the injured Lasith Embuldeniya and has grabbed the opportunity with both hands to further underline his talent and potential.
Even then, he was introduced to the attack at a very tough situation of the innings when Bangladesh were cruising along towards a formidable first innings total.
Maiden over
However, Jayawickrama delivered a maiden over in his Test debut as Bangladesh looked to consolidate their position through their openers Saif Hassan and Tamim Iqbal.
Jayawickrama’s consistency and perseverance eventually brought him success as he broke a threatening opening stand when he removed Hasan for his maiden Test wicket in the 26th over.
But it was the wicket of Tamim for 92 that brought him great satisfaction as the Bangladesh opener has been scoring heavily throughout this series. Another prize scalp for Jayawickrama was the wicket of Mushfiqur Rahim as the spinners took control of the situation after the batsmen had dominated the opening two days of this Test match.
Nevertheless, this was a fantastic performance from Jayawickrama who had only 10 First-Class matches under his belt before making his Test debut. But it was his performances for Moors Sports Club during the recent Premier League Tournament and Major Club Limited Over Tournament that really changed his fortunes and caught the eye of the National Selectors.
He made an excellent debut for the Braybrooke Place Club while claiming a total of 31 wickets from six outings including a six-wicket haul against the Tamil Union.
Thereafter, he captured 17 wickets from nine limited over games and gave another reminder to the National Cricket Selectors about his capabilities.
Dream debut
It was no doubt a dream debut for him but at the same time there would have been little bit of tears in his eyes while recalling the joyful moments he experienced with his late father Indrajith Jayawickrama who passed away some eight years ago.
But Praveen never gave up his cricketing career and always had a clear target of reaching the summit under the blessings of his beloved mother who was always behind his success and failures.
There were so many elite schools in Colombo who were keen to have his services from his very young days while representing Holy Cross College, Kalutara.
He was so talented and promising that he was able to play in the Holy Cross First XI Team at the very young age of 15.
But Praveen did not want to disappoint his mother and turned down several requests as he remained at Holy Cross before finally crossing over to St. Sebastian’s for his Advanced Level studies.
This was certainly the turning point of his career as he captured 90 wickets in his maiden season and soon he was selected to represent the Sri Lanka Youth Team at the age of 17.
He made his debut for the Sri Lanka Under-19 Team during the series against South Africa and thereafter, he played against England and also played in the Asia Cup Tournament.
He turned out to be a regular member of the Sri Lanka Youth Team and was able to tour South Africa, Australia, Malaysia (Asia Cup) and was a member of the Sri Lanka Team for the 2018 ICC Youth World Cup held in New Zealand.
With his commitments for the Sri Lanka Youth Team, Praveen had little chances of impressing for his school but yet he managed to claim 39 wickets from six matches in 2017 and had 42 wickets from seven outings in 2018.
Now that he has broken into the Sri Lankan Test scene in the most spectacular manner there will be a lot of expectations from this youngster to deliver whenever he starts bowling.
0 comments:
Post a Comment