The Sri Lankan national netball team left for the 14th Netball World Cup, to be held in Sydney Australia, early Monday morning.
The team, led by the Mother-Daughter duo of Deepti Alwis (Head Coach) and Semini Alwis (Captain), face an uphill task within their group that includes South Africa, Malawi and Singapore, ranked 5th, 6th and 15th respectively. Sri Lanka is currently ranked 22nd in the world just ahead of fellow Asian rivals Malaysia.
Sri Lanka was long considered a force in the Asian Netball arena, however with the team, having been unable to reclaim the Asian crown since 2009, has been left behind by teams that they used to overcome easily. The lack of international games has not helped their cause in the least, Sri Lanka’s last international tournament being the Asian Championships held in September last year. The national team, under the guidance of Deepti Alwis has not faced a single international opponent in just under a year; therefore it is fair to say that there isn’t much expectation riding on their shoulders.
In terms of preparation, the team has undergone intensive training under the watchful eyes of former Sri Lankan captain Alwis over the last 2 and a half months that she has been in charge. Meanwhile arch rivals Singapore are coming off a successful SEA Games campaign and South Africa have spent the last few weeks in New Zealand, facing the home team and the Fiji team in preparation for the big tournament.
The team consists of many players who have represented Sri Lanka in the past, although they are lacking the experience of players like Sashika Samarasinghe (Captained 2008, 2009, 2010, 2014), Tharjani Shivalingham (Captain 2011, 2012), Kumarini De Silva (Captain 2011) and Marissa Fernando (Captain 2013, 2014). Addressing this issue, Coach Deepti Alwis had this to say to ThePapare “Tharjini was an asset to the country, and players like that must think about the country and give whatever time they have left in their careers to the country. Tharjini did not participate in the trials, so without attending the trials, we cannot pick her for the world cup. Many other senior players also did not participate in the trials, because of personal reasons and that is why they missed out. But even when we did not have Tharjini in the past, we still maintained a high standard, we have talented players.” She went on to say that she very happy with the progress the team has made during the past 2 months saying “I think the entire country can be proud of the standard these new players have been able to achieve in such a short period of time.”
Vice Captain Gayani Dissanayake too expressed her confidence in the team’s preparation saying that she believed that the team has reached a good standard through hard work during the past couple of months. “We didn’t get a long period to prepare and a lot of our players are inexperienced but with the cooperation of everyone, we have reached a standard from which we can give a good fight to the other teams in our group.” She went on to say that the tournament will be a good opportunity to assess Sri Lanka’s progress in the Netball arena with a new look team and it’s future prospects.
Deepti Alwis, along with daughter Semini and Vice Captain Gayani Dissanayake have made it abundantly clear that the team’s main objective is to defeat their Asian counter parts Singapore in the team’s first encounter of the tournament. Skipper Semini Alwis had this to say to ThePapare “Our main goal is to beat the Singapore team and to reclaim the reputation we lost during the past Asian Championships; we want to regain the faith of the people.” The trio seem cautiously optimists about their chances versus rivals Singapore and promise to play a unique style of netball during the tournament.
Sri Lanka, who are drawn in Pool C and will play Singapore in their opening fixture on August 7th, Malawi on August 8th and South Africa on August 10th in the preliminary rounds.
The structure for the tournament starts with sixteen teams split into four Pools of four teams playing a Round Robin Round through to the Medal Games for Gold, Silver and Bronze:
Rounds:
Preliminary Round: Determines the teams that will progress to the qualification rounds
Qualification Round: Determines which teams will play in the semi-finals / medal games
and who will play in the placing games
Semi–Finals: Determine which teams will compete in the medal games
Placing games: Determine which teams are placed 5-16
Medal Games: Determine which teams win Gold, Silver and Bronze
The 16 teams that will be participating in the tournament are Australia, New Zealand, England, Jamaica, Malawi, South Africa, Wales, Scotland, Fiji, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Uganda and Zambia, with the home team being favourites to retain the title they won in 2011 edition held in Singapore.
Deepthi Alwis – Sri Lanka Netball coach (World Cup 2015)
Semini Alwis – Sri Lanka Netball captain (World Cup 2015)
Gayanie Dissanayake – Sri Lanka Netball vice captain (World Cup 2015)
