Susantha Pushpakumara Basnayake is an past pupil of St. Anthony’s College, Katugastota and a fine cricketer and Level-2 cricket coach with a huge amount of experience.
He represented the school Under-13, 15, 17 and 19 as a right-hand top-order batsman and right-arm medium-pace bowler and his highest score was 124 against St. Anne’s College, Kurunegala.
His best bowling figures were six wickets for 44 against St. Benedicts’ College, Kotahena. He was a member of the All-Island champion Under-15 Team of 1996.
After leaving school, Susantha represented the Tamil Union Under-23 Cricket Team from 2001 to 2002. He also represented Kandy CC and the Kandy YCC as an all-rounder and his highest score in club cricket was 86 against Chilaw Marians.
His best bowling was six for 64 against Lankan SC. He started his cricket coaching career in 2004 at Thalatuoya Central College and from 2006 to 2010 he coached Vidyartha College, Kandy.
From 2010 to 2012 he became the Head Coach and helped his team to become the Best Cricket Team in the Central Province.
Under his coaching, Ruwan Bandara of Vidyartha became the Best Batsman from the outstation scoring 1,190 runs. In addition, Keshan Gamage became the Most Popular Outstation Cricketer.
Susantha joined St. Anthony’s as a junior cricket coach and helped the Under-13 Team to become All-Island champions in the Division One Tournament in 2018 while the Under-15 Team became Division One All-Island champions.
He was able to produce some outstanding cricketers who represented Sri Lanka in the Under-15 Team on the tour of Malaysia.
While coaching at St. Anthony’s, he also started coaching the St. Anthony’s Girls’ School Team in 2016.
He helped St. Anthony’s Girls’ School Team to become champions for over 10 years at the Inter-District Girls’ Cricket Tournament organised by the Department of Education.
That team became third at the All-Island Girls’ Cricket Tournament in 2017. He is a qualified umpire as well and he had the opportunity to follow a three-day cricket coaching programme conducted by Les Lanham.
0 comments:
Post a Comment