The Sri Lanka Schools Cricket Association (SLSCA), one of the integral stakeholders of Sri Lanka Cricket, conducted its Annual General Meeting recently to elect the office bearers for 2016-2018 at the Subodhi Maha Vidyala Auditorium in Battaramulla.

Mr. Sarathchandra De Silva of Kalutara Vidyalaya was elected as the new President of SLSCA, uncontested. The all-important position of the Secretary had a close three-way fight which was eventually won by Kapila Jayalath of Karandeniya Central with a tally of 88 votes against Saman Hettiarachchi, who obtained 64 votes and Nishantha Kumara of Devapathiraja Maha Vidyalaya Ratgama, who received 41 votes.

After being elected as the Secretary, Kapila Jayalath shared his plans for the future, “We will announce our plans to streamline school cricket within the next few days. Cricket has certainly improved and our task as officials who govern the sport has become more challenging with more schools joining in to play the game at competitive level. Our concern will be based on the sport and its stakeholders and we will work hard towards transforming SLSCA as one of well respected, well recognized and responsible sports governing bodies at schools level in the country.” Jayalath said.

The Treasurers’ post went uncontested to Manjula Vass of Basilica College Ragama. The five positions for the post of Vice President were filled by B.A. Abeyratne (Royal College Colombo), Oshara Panditharatne (Lumbini College), Jagath Senaratne (P. de S. Kularatne Ambalangoda), Mohan Wickramasinghe (St. Sebastian’s College Katuneriya) and U. WImalasena (Dharmapala College Pannipitiya). Leelananda Kumarasiri of Theraputta National School Ambalantota was elected Assistant Secretary while Pradeep Dharmaratne filled the position of Assistant Treasurer.

Kamal Indrajith of Kegalu Vidyalaya and Wasantha Haputantri of St. Peter’s College retained their positions as the Tournament Secretaries of the Under 19 and Under 17 tournaments respectively while Mahinda Uduwarella of Maliyadeva College Kurunegala was appointed as the Under 15 Tournament Secretary. Finally, Malik Keerthi of De Mazenod College was appointed the Tournament Secretary of the Under 13 age group.

The outgoing Secretary of SLSCA, Dilshan De Silva exclusively told ThePapare.com that the Under 19 tournament will be an Under 20 tournament from 2016/17 but it will be interesting to see how these newly-elected office bearers’ run the show.

“We have made all the necessary steps with the assistance of the Education Ministry and Sri Lanka Cricket and informed the schools that the players born on or after 1st of January, 1997 will be eligible to play the 2016/17 schools cricket tournament. Some schools are protesting but I cannot say what will really happen in the future.” De Silva said.

The standards of the Sri Lanka Schools Cricket system has depreciated over the years due to the large number of teams playing in the division one and unfortunately, the 2015/16 Under 19 division one schools three-day final between St. Peter’s College and St. Sebastian’s College is yet to be played.

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