Desert Cubs Cricket Academy (DCCA), United Arab Emirates have organized an invitational 40-over cricket tournament in Sri Lanka which will be staged from 20th to 25th August, 2014 for the under 15 & 17 age groups as the 5th Desert Cubs tour of Sri Lanka was officially launched at a media conference held at Galadari Hotel on Friday evening.
The academy was formed in 2007 by their Head Coach and CEO Presley Polonnowita, a former Sri Lankan youth player who has completed his coaching and coach educator level with Cricket Australia and he explained the success story of Desert Cubs “We started with only 10 students the academy now boasts more than 700 registered members for Cricket, Badminton and Swimming trained by a set of more than 40 qualified level 1 and 2 coaches. We are one of the largest cricket academies in UAE, providing training to various nationalities from age groups of 6 to 19 years. “
“DCCA will be staging an invitational 40-over tournament in Sri Lanka during the month of August involving the best schools in Sri Lanka. Ananda College, St. Peters College, Thurstan College, Royal College, St. Sebastian’s College, St. Anne’s College and CCC School of Cricket for the under 15 and under 17 age groups. All the matches are slated to be worked off at the BRC, Colts, Bloomfield, Thurstan and Royal grounds.” Tour Organizing Committee chairman, Anoj Silva explained the structure of the tournament.
This will be the inaugural edition of what is mooted to be an annual event in the Sri Lanka schools cricket calendar with school teams from several overseas countries also expected to take part from next year.
“The main aim of launching this tournament is to give all players the best possible competition needed to fine tune their abilities and cricketing prowess and this would give more exposure for them to become more competitive. The very idea would extend towards promoting tourism through cricket.” Chief Marketing Officer of DCCA, Aaron Vedhasinghe emphasized the basic idea of this tournament.
Desert Cubs Cricket Academy awarded two full scholarships to 2 local schools players from St. Peter’s College (Manelkar De Silva) and St. Anne’s College, Kurunegala (Malshan Perera) to tour UAE with full expenses and gifted with DC Legends cricket equipment which will be available in Sri Lanka in near future. Both future Sri Lankan prospects will be training with the finest coaches for 10 days in UAE before the end of this year.
