Sri Lanka To Face Tough Challenge Amidst Chaos In Naming Final Squad
- 13th World Netball Championship 2011
By Hishan Welmilla
Sri Lanka will face a tough task in the 13th World Netball Championships 2011scheduled to get underway from July 3 in Singapore.
Sri Lanka qualified for the event being the Asian Champions and has been drawn to pool A along with defending champions, Australia, Northern Ireland and Samoa. Lankan lasses will face a tough challenge to move forward from the group matches.
Sri Lankan will meet Northern Ireland as their first outing on July 4 at 3.30 pm local time (1.30 pm Sri Lanka Time) and they expect to meet Samoa on July 5 at 1.15 pm local time (10.45 am Sri Lanka Time).
The Lankans will take on Australia on July 6 at 8.00 pm local time ( 5.30 pm Sri Lanka Time).
Bedsides facing challenges in the tournament, the Sri Lanka netball authorities in the middle of another controversy as they finding difficulty in naming the final squad. It is a pathetic situation to see that the authorities of the Netball Federation of Sri Lanka has not taken the preparation of the Sri Lankan netball team to the world cup seriously as most of the other participating countries have named their squads well ahead of the event but Sri Lanka intends changing the players till the eleventh hour.
The latest development was observed last week as several players in the squad are faced with injury issues and Lankan authorities have looked for former Sri Lankan players who were not in the original squad to be recalled to represent Sri Lanka. Among them are three players who has represented the Sri Lankan Asia cup winning team .Therefore authorities are in a desperate situation to call for a fresh trail as there are only a few days left to the World Championship.
The reliable sources indicated that the Sri Lankan coach Hyacinth Wijesinghe is responsible for the latest development and has been accused by many who love the game of Netball. Sri Lanka qualified to the World Cup Netball Championship after being crowned as Asian Netball Queens, under the coaching of Thilaka Jinadasa who is currently the National coach of Brunei.
The top sixteen netball nations in the world will come together in Singapore and will battle to be Crowned as the Netball queens of the world for four years.
The Last time Runner up New Zealand, Trinidad & Tobago, Fiji & Wales will be in Pool B, while Jamaica, Singapore, South Africa and Botswana will be in Pool C. England, Malawi, Barbados and Malaysia will play in the Pool D. The grand final is scheduled to take place on July 10.
In the meantime, the International Federation of Netball Associations has announced the host nation for the 2015 World Cup. Sydney, Australia will host the 14th World Netball Championships and the decision was announced by netball’s world governing body IFNA following a meeting of the IFNA Board of Directors.
Sydney was competing against Manchester to host the Championships. The IFNA Board appointed an Evaluation Committee to visit both cities and undertake a comprehensive evaluation process.
