Coca-Cola Cricket Pathway Stars In National U-19 Team

The Coca-Cola Cricket Pathway was successful in producing 12 star players to represent the Sri Lanka U-19 National team. The 14 member U-19 pool consisted of 12 players from the Coca-Cola Cricket Pathway and they were successful in emerging winners of the tournament. The team brought additional honour to Sri Lanka recently by becoming the first national side from Sri Lanka to win a series in Australia.
In an endeavor to identify and reach out to the aspiring cricketers at the grass root level, Coca-Cola in collaboration with the Aravinda de Silva Cricket Foundation conducted the Coca-Cola Cricket Pathway initiative over an 18-month period. The entire initiative was organised to promote cricket and identify young cricketing talent across the country and the selection of players who participated and excelled in the Pathway Programme to the national squad is quantifiable evidence of the success and significance of the programme to school level cricket in Sri Lanka.
The National U-19 squad selected for the Tri-Series tour comprised six players from the outstations – Matale, Kandy, Galle and Matara, the rest being made up from schools from Colombo and the suburbs. The inclusion of Lahiru Malinga from Matale is a reflection of the success of Coca-Cola’s quest to bring rural cricketers to the limelight and provide them with the opportunity of entering the national squad.
Young Lahiru initially captured the attention of many cricket professionals at the first Coca-Cola Cricket Pathway programme. Held in April, 2008 at the Rangiri Dambulu Stadium, he displayed enormous talent and passion for the game. In recognition of his stellar performance, Lahiru had the rare opportunity to represent the Sri Lankan Schools Under-19 National 20/20 team in which he bagged the coveted “Man of the Match” title.
Commenting on the successful participation of the Coca-Cola Cricket Pathway participants in the National U-19 team, Manish Chaturvedi – Country Manager for Sri Lanka and Maldives Coca-Cola Far East Ltd., stated that this has been an immense success for the entire Coca-Cola Cricket Pathway programme. “The inclusion of our Pathway participants in the National team is the pinnacle of all the efforts channelled into training and coaching these young school cricketers throughout the past 18 – 20 months. This is a success for the Coca-Cola Cricket Pathway programme as well as for youth cricket in Sri Lanka as we have been able to put these players on the world map. Their overwhelming success is an additional boost that reflects the quality and integrity of the training that they have been exposed to, both through the Pathway programme as well as at the National level. We hope that we will be able to give birth to more stars in the future and continue to unearth and nurture the hidden cricketing talent in Sri Lanka.”
Aravinda de Silva also commenting on this stated, “It is indeed heartening to see young talent being  from rural areas. If not for programmes such as this, these young cricketers might never have been given the opportunity to shine. I am very proud to be a part of an initiative such as this, and will try to do my utmost towards promoting rural talent to the international arena. I extend my heartfelt congratulations to the young cricketers and wish them success for the future!”