Two women umpires and a woman match referee from Sri Lanka will officiate at the upcoming Women’s Asia Cup to be held in Bangladesh and this is going to be historic event for Sri Lanka as three women’s officials in one Asia Cup.
Sri Lanka men’s officials( umpires) Kumar Dharmasena, Ruchira Palliyaguruge,Ravindra Wimalasiri, referees Ranjan Madugalle , brothers Graeme Labrooy and Wendal Labrooy are no strangers in men’s International Cricket but women’s officiate are new to Sri Lanka.
The former Sri Lanka women’s team opener Dedunu De Silva and Nimali Perera, both SLC Level 3 umpires, and former National player Vanessa De Silva, who is a match referee, will take part in the upcoming Women’s Asia Cup, which is scheduled to be played in Bangladesh The Women’s T20 Asia Cup 2022 will be held from 1 to 16 October, in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka women’s team led by Chamari Atapattu is scheduled to take part in this event with other Asian teams like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh,UAE, Thailand.
All three of them are highly experienced match officials in the domestic circuit and have officiated in the men’s first class and List ‘A’ matches, said the Head of the National cricket operations Chintaka Edirimanne.All three officials are currently officiating in all women’s major tournaments conducted by Sri Lanka Cricket and three officials appointments are a great honour to Sri Lanka said Chintaka Edirimanne who himself was a former Sri Lanka A all rounder .
Actually Venessa de Silva was the Head of Sri Lankan women’s cricket at SLC who took great effort to develop women’s cricket while she was a former women’s selection committee member and played leading roles in women’s cricket. This is the first time three officials will join fot a Asian women’s cricket event.
In fact Sri Lanka already produced several talented women’s cricket umpires with most of them being former women’s cricketers. The former leg spinner Suwini de Alwis is also a talented women’s cricket umpires in International events.
