Sri Lankan cricketers so far had a bad journey in 2017 as they failed to win the matches against team India and South Africa, in fact, they lost the 3 series against each team without winning a single game. After the defeats in the home country and also in visiting country Proteas, the Lions are going to face the No.1 Test team, India.
Followed by winning Test series against Pakistan 2-0 in UAE, Sri Lankan cricket team is currently touring India for the upcoming Test series. Ahead of the series, the Sri Lankan players attended the Dialog Cricket Awards 2017 ceremony, a function where some big names from Sri Lankan cricket were felicitated.
Kusal Mendis was named as the ‘Best Test Batsman’, while the award for ‘Best Test Bowler’ was awarded to Rangana Herath at the annual awards ceremony organized by Sri Lanka Cricket in Colombo. Dilruwan Perera bagged the award for ‘Best All-rounder’. Kusal Mendis and Suranga Lakmal were named as ‘Best ODI Bowler’ and ‘Best ODI All-rounder’, respectively.
Asela Gunaratne was awarded the prize for ‘Best T20 Batsman’ and Lasith Malinga was named as the ‘Best T20 Bowler’. Players who performed well in 2016 and 2017 season, umpires and journalists were felicitated at the event. India’s first World Cup Winning skipper Kapil Dev was also present at the event.
One of the highlights of the event was when the Sri Lankan cricketers entertained the crowd by singing popular Bollywood song ‘Pehla Nasha’. They even sang a few Tamil songs. The songs were sung by a few Sri Lankan cricketers such as Niroshan Dickwella, Milinda Siriwardena, Sachithra Senanayake, Akila Dhananjaya, Tillakaratne Dilshan and Nuwan Kulasekara.
Watch The Video Here:
Sri Lanka is now up for a three-match Test series against India with the first match starting on November 16 at Eden Gardens, Kolkata. They would later head in for a three-match ODI and T20I series against the Men in Blue.
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