Some cricketers plays the game. Some thinks the game, breath the game. Dinitha Basnayake, The batting prodigy of St. Benedicts College Kotahena, belongs to second category.
Aged 18, Dinitha is the captain of his college team, as he posses some fine qualities of a leader. At such young, when most of the players could not even realize their own potential, Dinitha reads the game incredibley well.
A opening batsman, Dinitha scored more than 500 runs for his team in the last season. This season too, he impressed one and all, and scored more than 400 runs.
“I started playing cricket when i was about 4 years. My dad was the one who found out that i have a talent in cricket. So with his advice, i started playing. I played u 13, 15, 17 and u 19 at college level. And captained the u 15, 17, 19” he said about his early career.
But, More than his batting, his thinking towards the game impressed his coaches.
“Not only being the captain in cricket i was the college head prefect as well. I have learned so many things to my life from cricket. Every part of cricket is mostly related to your life as well. Examples like concentration patience are related to life as well. As i think this game is basically about your mind and head. Why i say like that is if your not head strong you cant achieve your targets” he reveals his ideology for the game.
So no surprise that his idol is legendary Kumar Sangakkara. “My idol is kumar sangakkara, because of his personality. i finds him different from other cricketers, not only as a cricketer, but the way he behaves, the way he talks to people” he says about his idol.
And only when we assume that he is a thinking cricketer, he surprise with another quality. “I am very serious about my singing too, and used to give performances at family events” he chuckles.
