PRIMA-SLC BONDING A SYNERGY – PRIMA GM, SAJITH GUNARATNE
By Srian Obeyesekere
Sri Lanka Cricket yesterday announced its highly ambitious long term junior cricket development program, the Sri Lanka Youth League (SLYL) 2024 which has extended to a record 17 years since 2007 when the prestigious Prima Group joined hands with the nerve center of cricket Sri Lanka in giving impetus to the very cradle of cricket which is the pathway to top flight national development and foraying to the big show international arena.
Accordingly, junior cricket took top billing at yesterday’s press conference at the Mercantile Cricket Association auditorium with Sri Lanka Cricket’s Chief Executive Officer, Ashley de Silva driving home the significance of such a a tournament under its annual development calendar to harnessing and fostering the country’s future generation of cricketers where he emphasised the value input of the Prima Group by its magnanimous sponsorship leverage to sustaining the conduct of such a top priority cricket development program now approaching two decades.
The SLC CEO, Ashley de Silva, taking the floor, while thanking the VIPs and media present, held out a huge thank you and appreciation to the Prima Group’s Ceylon Agro Industries top executives namely its Senior General Manager, Donavan Ondaatje and General Manager, Sajith Gunaratne.
“This is an important tournament in our annual development calendar and done in order to harness the future generation of our cricketers, and we value the continuous partnership by the Prima Group,” he said while going on to elaborate the extent to which such a program had been the fermenting root to the country’s national and international flourishing thus far.
Meanwhile, the General Manager of the Prima Group’s Ceylon Agro Industries, Sajith Gunaratne, responding to my question on the long serving value input of the bonding between Prima and Sri Lanka Cricket said that such a bonding had become a massive synergy to the combined impact the two entities drove to the common goal of national promotion of cricket. “It has become a household name in driving the game in Sri Lanka,” he emphasized.
Prima has partnered with Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) to sponsor the Under-15 Sri Lanka Youth League (SLYL) 2024, organized by Sri Lanka Cricket, under its National Pathway Program, with the objective of identifying promising young cricketers at an early stage.
The partnership was announced at a joint media conference held by Sri Lanka Cricket and Prima Group at the Mercantile Cricket Association (MCA), Colombo.
Since 2007, Prima Group Sri Lanka has been For the record, the Prime Group Sri Lanka had been the proud official sponsor of the Prima U15 SLYL tournament, which had served as a platform for thousands of young cricketers to representing their districts and provinces with many talented cricketers of repute, both past and present have having had their beginnings throgh this tournament.
Five provincial teams, namely Colombo North, Colombo South, Dambulla, Galle and Kandy will be in the fray in the mega Prima U15 SLYL 2024 50-Over Tournament which will commence on November 21 in several venues in Colombo such as the Colombo University Ground, Mercantile Cricket Association Ground, Thurstan College and Royal College Grounds. The semi-finals are scheduled for November 28 with the finals match on the 30th.
