Saliya Kumara back in action

Published : 11:20 am  March 5, 2012 |  No comments so far  |     |   (10)  |  

Kandy Sports Club’s last season’s captain elect and full back Saliya Kumara is now free to attend practices and play for the club as he has now completed serving the one year suspension clamped on him for consuming a performance enhancing drug during the Five Nations Rugby match between Sri Lanka and the Arabian Gulf played in Colombo last year.

Saliya Kumara was found guilty of the offence along with another Kandy Sports Club player Keith Gurusinghe and Swarnatillake from the Navy. This was on a random test carried out by the authorities.

Saliya Kumara is now attending practices along with Keith Gurusinghe and is strongly tipped to captain Kandy Sports Club this season when the club meets on March 10th for the election of the captain. Also attending practices are No. 8 Sean Wijesinghe, full back and stand off Nuwan Hettiarachchi and Buddhi Talagampola who missed playing last season due to injuries and for other reasons. The return of the five top players – all national players along with the two foreign players expected to don Kandy jersey will make the hill capital’s team a formidable one.

Last season Kandy Sports Club did not have a specialist player to man the last line of defence and to do the spot kicking following the suspension of Saliya Kumara and Nuwan Hettiarachchi being made not available. But with makeshift arrangements Kandy Sports performed remarkably well to win both the Caltex League title and the Clifford Cup knock tournament.

Kandy Sports Club’s South African born rugby coach Yohan Taylor is expected to return to the island today (Monday) and will resume the coaching sessions this week.

By U J Jezeem