By GERRY CARMAN
BUCKLEY Ridges Cricket Club has a happy knack of pulling off recruiting coups. This time it’s off-field.
The little club in Pultney Street that keeps punching above its weight in the Dandenong and District Cricket Association, has succeeded in attracting the services of the highly credentialed coach and former Sri Lankan player Manjula Munasinghe as its junior development adviser.
Manjula, the founder of the well respected and patronized Aus-Lanka Cricket Academy that operates from the Sandown Indoor Training Centre, has committed to the long term development of BRCC’s junior players.
He set up the academy with former Sri Lankan Test star Ravi Ratnayake, in 2005. He acknowledged that another powerful club had shown some interest but he was more attracted by the geographical “challenge” at Buckley because the Dandenong area no longer provided a steady flow of juniors as young families had relocated to the growth corridors of Cranbourne and Berwick.
He said he was impressed by what he had seen and heard about Buckley Ridges and would gradually introduce and implement his cricket and life philosophies to the club’s juniors and the existing coaching coterie.
Manjula, who will continue to run the Aus-Lanka Cricket Academy in Sandown, says he sees his involvement at club level, after an absence of 10 years, has “a different challenge” to running the academy.
“The basics of cricket coaching are the same,” he said.
“The difference is the existing club culture, and gradually working within that framework rather than introducing 1000 different things in a hurry.
“It will be about introducing good processes and promoting the game in the greater Dandenong area. Of getting parents involved. I see this as a great opportunity to develop the game of cricket at Buckley and across wider Dandenong.”
Manjula aims to have multiple teams in each junior group in the 2015-’16 season “and within three years I want Buckley to be the best junior club in the DDCA,” he added.
That seems well within his grasp considering his academy has coached more than 500 boys in the last 10 years and that he currently has 100 boys on his books.
“And, I am happy to say that last year we had three of our students representing Victoria in the Under-12, U-15 and U-17 age groups, and currently we have one boy on standby for the Australian Under-19 team.”
Manjula, now a youthful 42, played for the powerful Singhalese Sports Club in Colombo before making his international debut for Sri Lanka against Australia in the one-day format at Sharjah in 1994.
He played 33 first-class matches in Sri Lanka and 17 List A games in addition to five international ODIs between 1994-’96.
His best ODI return was 3/30 against Australia at the MCG – his scalps including Michael Slater, Mark Taylor (both caught behind) and Mark Waugh, who he clean bowled for a duck.
