By Srian Obeyesekere
The Prima U15 Sri Lanka Youth League 2025 50-Over Tournament, roundly considered the backbone cradle stepping stone to enriching national cricket down the line from the U19 to the mainstream grid, will be staged for a record 18th consecutive year mooted by Sri Lanka Cricket and sponsored by Ceylon Agro Industries Ltd., Prima Group, Sri Lanka from November 19 to the 28 at Thurstan College Cricket Grounds.
The grand event was announced by Sri Lanka Cricket and the Prima Group yesterday to the media at the Sinhalese Sports Club auditorium in the bubble of a large number of starry eyed junior cricket players in attendance with the Prima Cricket Song aired after Sri Lanka Cricket’s Tournament Committee and Executive Committee Member. Nalin Aponsod at the head table roundly extended a warm welcome to the audience with special mention of the Prima Group officials present including its General Manager. Sajith Gunaratne and Achala Ramanayake, Head of International Marketing and Business Development.
The take off saw Nalin Aponso announcing that it was a really proud occasion of the red letter day that brought together the cradle of cricket mega tournament, and thanked the Prima Group for its unstinted commitment to going hand with SLC towards taking the country’s cricket to the next level by feeding the national grid through such a grassroots level project encompassing the five teams drawn up from the five provinces with the teams in the fray being Colombo North., Colombo South, Dambulla, Galle and Kandy.
Meanwhile, the Director of Cricket, National, Jerome Jayaratne, emphasised the running importance of us by the Prima Youth League pin pointing that almost 80 per cent of the current national cricketers came through the enterprising Prima Youth League format.
Jayaratne further emphasised that such a program took pride of place in nurturing junior players through SLCs sophisticated modern training network that is the High Performance Center under the expert guidance of the best of foreign and local coaching expertise.
SLCs Chief Executive Officer, Ashley de Silva drove the point that SLC plays a pivotal role in enhancing age group cricket, and such an initiative was the ideal platform to find and nurture players for the nation.
The General Manager of the Ceylon Agro Prima Group, Sajith Gunaratne in his address saluted Sri Lanka Cricket for its historic long running partnership with the Prima Group in fostering such a program which was the heart of cricket given the resource feeding impact such a junior youth program played to driving the country’s cricket.
He went on to stress that such a tournament at the Junior level served wholesomely to what he reiterated was to ‘nurturing grassroots cricket in the country.’
“For nearly two decades we have worked closely with Sri Lanka Cricket to create opportunities for young players to discover their potential with many of them ascending through the rank to represent the nation,” he said.