It was very dissapinted performance by Sri Lanka Netball team when they lost to Singapore 52-55 at Netball World Cup held in Cape town South Africa on last Tuesday.
This is the second time Sri Lanka lost to Singapore at the World Cup. Sri Lanka team led by Gayanjali Amarawansa emerged champions at the Asia Cup in Singapore and same Singapore team lost to Sri Lanka and Sri Lanka won the Asian title. After Asia Cup Sri Lanka changed their head coach Hyacinth Wijesinghe and replaced former National coach Thilaka Jinadasa.
However Netball expert said we can’t blame coach Thilaka Jinadasa for this unexpected defeat and this was mainly due to poor centre pass by Sri Lanka and the Sri Lankan players teamwork was not up to the expectations. Sri Lanka changed their goal shooter Tharjini Shivalingam and replaced Thisala Algama but that did not work and finally Singapore young looking side defeated Sri Lanka.
The first quarter Singapore took an early lead 19-10, while Sri Lanka fought back during secund quarter led 17-7. Once again Singapore won third quarter 16-13 and final quarter once again Singapore got thrilling 13-12 to win the game with a gap of three points .
In fact Sri Lanka made good fight against high rank Wales in their previous game but Singapore game they lost with three points made huge draw back and now they have to make tough battle to improve World ranking.
Sri Lanka was scheduled to play against Zimbabwe yesterday night.
Dhammika Ratnaweera