Sri Lankan cricket royalty headed this way

FORMER captain of the Sri Lankan International Cricket Team, Tillakaratne Dilshan, the man credited with inventing 360-degree batting, is coming to Korumburra.

A mate of Korumburra Cricket Club coach Isuru Anushka, he has been enticed out to play a series of one-day games for the Cobras, and could even be prepared to come back next year to play in the finals.

It might just be enough for the Burra to turn success in A2 last year into a finals place in A1 in the coming season, but no one is too worried about that, in fact they’re salivating at the thought of playing with or against cricket royalty.

“He was a giant of the game in his day. Changed the way cricket was played, you could say,” said local aficionado Kristian ‘Pistol’ Gray.

“He invented the scoop. He’s best known for his batting but like a lot of the guys from Sri Lanka, he can bowl pretty well also.

“A lot of the guys would love to play in those games. He might clean them all up, but they’d enjoy coming up against him all the same.”

Spiritual leader of the Korumburra Cricket Club, Allan Summerfield, said the exact details of his time in Korumburra haven’t been worked out but he acknowledged that everyone was already talking about it.

“Yeah, it would be great. He’s friends with our coach. That’s why he’d like to come.”

Aged 46 now, he’s no slouch, regularly playing cameo roles around the globe and he’ll be formidable with both bat and ball on our docile strips.

South Gippsland has become quite the home-away-from-home for Sri Lankan cricket tourists in recent years, many of whom have found jobs and secured visas and brought their families over, on the back of local support and an enjoyable experience of playing locally.

Along the way, they’ve added significantly to the standard of the Leongatha and District Cricket Association competition.