Team which couldn’t win the Asian championships, inquiring about world championship defeat

Based on a complaint made to the Sports Ministry by several former Netball captains, the Sports Ministry is preparing to conduct an investigations regarding the defeat of the Sri Lankan team at the Netball World Cup held in the UK. This has come under severe criticism by a renowned sports journalist Ranjan Paranawithana.

However, the coach and the Manager of the Sri Lankan Netball Team are scheduled to be summoned to the Sports Ministry for an inquiry together with the former netball captains, shortly.

It is reported that former captains and coaches Deepthi Alwis, Hyacinth Wijesinghe and Vajira Pushpakumari had complained to the Sports Ministry regarding the defeat of the Sri Lankan Netball Team.

The Dinamina Newspaper journalist Prince Gunasekara reported that the Sri Lankan team showed greater talent at the 2011 world championships, adding that while all expenses were made it has proved to be a waste.

The former captains have pointed out that the tour to Botswana prior to the world cup was a futile exercise and the decision to send the team several weeks earlier to the UK was also just a waste of money.

Sri Lanka had lost all the matches at the world cup except the match against Singapore.

Sri Lanka lost their three Group A games but apart from the loss at the hands of defending world champions Australia (99-24), the Lankan lasses were able to produce good netball against Zimbabwe (79-49) and Northern Island (50-67). The loss of momentum in both games resulted in Sri Lanka being on the losing side.

Asian Champions Sri Lanka finished 15th place in the game ranking when they beat arch rivals Singapore by 78 goals 57 at the 15/16 placing match.

This time the highest scorer Sri Lankan player Tharjini Sivalingham’s biggest challenge came from the Samoa goal keeper Lenora Misa.

The usual strategy of the Sri Lanka team is to pass the ball to Tharjini from a far distance and score. However, having studied Sri Lanka’s strategy Samoa’s Misa had deflected the ball on 11 occasions by blocking the ball from reaching Tharjini and prevented Sri Lanka from scoring points, leading to defeat.