It seems that nowadays Sri Lanka Cricket Board has adopted a New strategy to avoid media attention about chosen players : Announce the team at the last moment.
Sri Lanka Cricket adopted a strange policy to announce the U19 Squad just before the team’s departure. On Wednesday, SLC summoned all the 20 players at its headquarter to attend the religious activities and the Official photograph of the team.
However, even at that moment, SLC didn’t announce the 15 members squad. Only after 7 PM, when all the activities with the team were completed, SLC released the list of selected players to media.
According to sources, there was a controversy regarding a specific player Ayana Siriwardana. Cricket Age published the news weeks ago how he was dumped from the preliminary squad, even though he was the captain and most standout performer from the President XI squad, that toured India for the challenger trophy recently.
It has learnt that Ayana’s exclusion from the squad raised eye brows and his school filed a protest in behalf of him with Dayasiri.
Dayasiri also took this into the consideration, as he has sent the approved squad to SLC along with a letter regarding the omission of Ayana, and that’s the main reason, why board were hesitating to announce the squad, even as Team is about to depart.
However, the letter sent by Dayasiri also couldn’t convince SLC over the talent of Ayana, as his name is absent from the 15 members squad.
Sri Lanka under 19 World Cup Squad
Given below is the 15 member squad, which will leave for New Zealand to take part in the ICC under 19 Cricket World Cup, scheduled to be held from 06th January to 04th February 2018.
1. Kamindu Mendis – Captain
2. Dhananjaya Lakshan
3. Santhush Gunathilaka
4. Hasitha Boyagoda
5. Nawanidu Fernando
6. Nipun Dananjaya
7. Ashen Bandara
8. Kishan Sanjula
9. Nishan Madushka
10. Jehan Daniel
11. Praveen Jayawickrama
12. Haren Buddila
13. Thisaru Rashmika
14. Kalana Perera
15. Nipun Malinga
