Despite qualifying for the World Junior Netball tournament, Sri Lanka’s budding players have come under fire from former coach Hyacinth Wijesinghe who described the current team as ordinary not fit for a global event.
Wijesinghe lashed out at the junior team after they lost heavily in the run-up matches of the Asian championship which ended in South Korea yesterday although Sri Lanka finished third beating Hong Kong 46-32 in the play-off match.
Sri Lanka were subjected to a heavy defeat (36-77) at the hands of Malaysia in one semi-final while Singapore thrashed Hong Kong by 56 points to 15 in the other semi-final played on Friday.
Sri Lanka also lost to Singapore 51-29 in another match.
“Finishing in the third slot is not good enough and with the heavy defeats by big margins against Malaysia and Singapore it goes to prove that the Sri Lanka junior netballers do not deserve to qualify for the World Junior Netball Championships,” Wijesinghe the former national coach told the Sunday Observer.
“They (Sri Lankans) were not good enough to match the standards of Asian level and this is why they lost by big margins to these two countries.
“The (Sri Lankan) wins against countries like South Korea and Brunei by massive margins goes to prove that the standard of those two countries are even worse than Sri Lanka,” she charged.
Another past Sri Lanka player told the Sunday Observer that she read an article on Facebook written by a foreign journalist that said the standard of netball at the Asian Youth tournament was not good enough.
At the start of the tournament Sri Lanka beat South Korea 94-8 and Brunei 82-16.
Sri Lanka then met a strong challenge from Singapore to lose 29-51.
The Singapore lasses started off sharply and were always one step ahead of Sri Lanka in the first quarter, with their nimble footwork and court coverage that gave them an 11-8 advantage.
Singapore took firm control in the second quarter too and increased their lead to 21-13 at half time.
In the third quarter Singapore finished 36-22.
Sri Lanka beat Chinese Taipei 83-17 in their fourth game and that gave them the chance to qualify for the semi-finals.