Cricket coaching legend, Lionel Mendis has passed away at a private hospital on Friday morning at the age of 80.

Mendis was a product of Dharmasoka College, Ambalangoda and Richmond College, Galle. He was world-famous for his brilliant coaching abilities. He coached over dozen thousand cricketers during his career including Arjuna Ranatunga, Brendon Kuruppu, Charith Senanayake, Dulip Samaraweera, Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Dharmasena, Sanjeewa Weerasinghe, Niroshan Bandarathilake, Avishka Gunawardane, Thilan Samaraweera, Naveed Navazs, Jehan Mubarak and Hemantha Boteju.

Lionel Mendis received the ICC centenary Award (1909-2009) in recognition of his outstanding service to Sri Lanka Cricket in 2009. He was also a recipient of the Gold Award for cricket coaching at the Golden Jubilee celebrations of Sri Lanka Cricket in 1998.

In 2000, Lionel authored the first ever cricket coaching manual in Sinhala ” Cricket Huruwa” a complete guidance for players as well as cricket coaches , described by many as a “Masterpiece”.

His coaching career at NCC started in 1982 and since then every parent wanted their kid to learn the ABC of Cricket from Lionel Mendis.