Sri Lankan Girls Rescued from Predators
– A new crop of future Sri Lanka women’s cricketers has surfaced unheralded, unsung and are currently in line to showcase themselves against the New Zealand second string team now touring the island having come through safe hands.
Nine of the girls in the squad, known as Sri Lanka A, have been cared for with parental-like dedication and virtually rescued from prowling predators that in the past caused several girls with hopes to fade into oblivion after falling prey. The guardians of the nine fortunate girls have been a group of people that include coaches with clean track records affiliated to a humanitarian organisation called the Foundation of Goodness (FOG) headed by welfare crusader Kushil Gunasekera who was a one-time Secretary of Sri Lanka Cricket many years ago.One of the girls, Sumudu Nisansala, smashed the Kiwi women into submission with a half century in the first match on Tuesday in Dambulla that was unfortunately halted by rain.
In reality Nisansala and the other eight girls, all from the southern districts of Galle and Matara have nudged followers that it is time for heads to turn and they are here to stay.Nisansala has four of her team-mates, Sathya Sadeepani the captain, Sanjana Kavindi, Shashini Gimhani and Sachini Nisansala from Devapathiraja College in Galle in the Sri Lanka A squad while the other four, Rashmika Sewwandi, Tharuka Shehani, Lihini Apsara and Piyumi Wathsala are from Matara where one school named Anura College is gaining ground with enthusiasm among the girls growing by the day. All have benefitted through the intervention of the FOG.
They have all put back a period when Sri Lanka’s women cricketers were at the butt end of club or locker room humour. Some critics called them too motherly to be indulging in sport while others bragged they were too dainty to be playing against robust women and would be better off working as seamstresses in the apparel industry. But history has been laid to rest where it should be and no longer does male chauvinism get under the skin of the island’s women cricketers. Today they have scaled the walls of separation and are managing styles and acumen on the pitch no different from the men that make many wonder why today’s girls are not yesterday’s women who had very little to go by.
Devapathiraja College is today the leading school to be associated with women’s cricket and the Foundation of Goodness and its cricket academy in Hikkaduwa has made them proliferate through generous sponsorships for many years.
“We are a feeder to the Sri Lanka team and we are sincerely and genuinely lifting up these girls with impartiality and good intentions doing justice for them and Sri Lanka”, said Gunasekera who holds honourary membership in the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), the custodian of the rules of cricket. To the discerning it may be a miscarriage of justice that Gunasekera has not played any part in the affairs of Sri Lanka Cricket for more than 20 years. If anyone knows what women’s cricket in the island needs, Gunasekera stands out from the rest as his FOG has put in place a structure and management plan where everyone is connected to a system and the apparatus is held responsible and answerable.
Gunasekera and his FOG think-tanks are currently in the process of drawing up plans to go deep into the villages looking for girls in their early teens who could be brought under the care of a contingent of his FOG Academy coaches some of whom can take pride in being responsible for discovering the four girls from Matara.Like it is with girls and young women in several sports in Sri Lanka, women’s cricket has been subjected to exploits by shady coaches and predators with hidden agendas that has in the past forced out some of the budding girls with their complaints and exposes falling on deaf ears. The girls who have been under the care of the FOG and its cricket academy at Hikkaduwa in Galle can be assured of a safe transition to the highest levels of the Sri Lanka team.