Maleesha Shehani Ratnayake outstanding women’s cricketer | Daily News

Maleesha Shehani Ratnayake outstanding women’s cricketer

Maleesha Ratnayake, bowling at a cricket match.    (Pictures. By Upananda Jayasundera-Kandy Sports spl.Corr
Maleesha Ratnayake, bowling at a cricket match. (Pictures. By Upananda Jayasundera-Kandy Sports spl.Corr

Eighteen year old, Maleesha Shehani Ratnayake, a Grade Twelve student in the arts stream of Nugawela National School is a fine cricketer who played in the School Cricket team as a right hand batswoman and a right arm off spin bowler. She started her Cricket career under the coaching of Lalith Chandrasena,a veteran Cricket coach and Umpire, Milinda Perera and Prasangi Yalingasinghe in school under the Captaincy of Nadara Samarakoon at the age of 12 years.


Maleesha Ratnayake, 

In 2015 she took three wickets for Twenty five runs and scored thirty two runs as a debutant in a traditional Cricket match against St.Anthonys’ Balika, Katugastota and in 2016 she continued her performances as an all-rounder to capture four wickets for thirty three runs and to score forty runs against Mahamaya Girls’ school, Kandy at the Cricket match played at Nugawela grounds. In 2017 she scored an unbeaten knock of 36 runs and captured two wickets for 13 runs against Ratnawalee Girls School,Gampaha and scored twenty eight runs claiming two wickets for 26 runs against Vijayaba Vidyalaya.

In 2018 she showed her class as one of the best bowlers among the Central Province women cricketers when she bagged 3 wickets for ten runs against St.Anthonys’ Girls School, Katugastota at the Sri lanka Girls Cricket tournament and apart from that she claimed 3 wickets for twenty four runs against Mahamaya Girls’ School and three wickets for 25 runs against Marapola Maha Vidyalaya at the same tournament.

In 2019 she maintained her outstanding performances at the Sri Lanka Girls Cricket tournament and claimed three wickets for 25 against Wadduwa Central, bagged 4 wickets for forty against St. Anthonys’ Girls. In the same year she was selected to the Kandy District Squad under Shiny Senaratne and her team mates were Udara Bandara (Mahamaya) Lakmini Rajapakshe(Nugawela) and Nethmi Sansala(Nugawela) to name a few.

In the year 2020 at the Schools cricket tournament she came out with 3 wickets for twenty eight runs not out against Wadduwa Girls College. Despite the covid 19 pandemic they played in 2021 at the Girls Cricket tourney and scored three unbeaten knocks of twenty eight not out against St.Anthonys’ Girls, 37 not out against Mahamaya Girls’, and 41 not out against Marapola MV. Their cricket team qualified for the final round of the Cricket tourney and her team was scheduled to play against Devapathiraja College,Ratgama but due to the lock-down they were prevented from playing the match. Her intention is to become a National Cricket player in future.


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