SA juniors follow the seniors home

COLOMBO: The South Africa under-18 team, here in the island nation since August 9,   was under tremendous pressure to emulate their seniors and return home. Late on Thursday night then, they found themselves on their way to the airport to return to South Africa.

The under-18 team, led by one Omphile Ramela, had played four matches — three in Colombo and one in Galle — and won three of them. Even on Thursday, they played a match. They had four matches left in their 15-day itinerary.

Earlier, the players, representing St. John’s College, Johannesburg, were tight-lipped as they had been asked not to comment on the senior team’s pullout from the tri-series on security ground but their coach Richard Venter threw enough light on the fact that the players did not mind staying.

He revealed that the team was under enormous pressure from their parents and the chairman of the council of schools back home to pack up. “We might fly back tonight itself. The hitch is tickets. The airline we have booked our tickets with is unable to advance the dates,” he had said earlier on Thursday. Obviously, their problem was solved. They were originally scheduled to leave on August 24.

It was an 18-member squad comprising school cricketers from the South African capital. There was also a Sri Lankan in this team.

Ironically, the senior team was made to wait to make their much-talked about exit from the country — in their bus outside the hotel — waiting for the Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapakse’s calvacade to pass so that they could leave for the airport.