Basnahira North cricket team

Basnahira North cricket team represents northern region of Western Province, Sri Lanka in first-class cricket tournaments. Basnahira North is based in Colombo. The team competes in two Sri Lankan domestic cricket competitions. The first-class Inter-Provincial tournament and the Twenty20 competition known as the Inter-Provincial Twenty20. The team also participated in, now defunct, the Inter-Provincial Limited Overs Tournament in 2007–08. From 2009 onwards champions of the Inter-Provincial Twenty20 tournament will be eligible to represent Sri Lanka in Twenty20 Champions League.^[2] But Basnahira North did not win the title in this year. The team draws cricketers from first-class club competition Premier Limited Overs Tournament. The top 75 players of the tournament selected for the Inter-Provincial tournament.^[3]

Basnahira North

One Day name	Basnahira North elevens
Personnel
Captain	Thilina Kandamby
Team information
Founded	Western Province 1990–1991 Basnahira North 1992–2010 Basnahira 2011
Home ground	R. Premadasa Stadium
Capacity	35,000
History
First-class debut	vs Ruhuna cricket team[1] in 1992 at Sinhalese Sports Club Ground
IP FC wins	3 (1992, 2008–09, 2009–10)
IP LO wins	none
IP T20 wins	none
Official website	Sri Lanka Cricket

Basnahira North's home ground is R. Premadasa Stadium, which is situated in northern part of city of Colombo.^[4] E-wis, a Sri Lankan IT company is the team's sponsor. Many cricketers who had represented leading schools in Colombo ended up playing for the Western province. Current captain of the side, Chaminda Vaas^[5] is a player who studied at the St. Joseph's College, Colombo.

2008/09 season

Basnhira North won the 2008–09 Inter-Provincial tournament beating Wayamba by 10 wickets in the finals. Angelo Mathews scored 152 runs in the finals and finished as the highest scorer in the tournament.^[6] Earlier in the tournament Mathews also scored a career best 270 against Kandurata.^[7] In 2009 Inter-Provincial Twenty20 tournament they managed to beat only the Schools invitational XI.^[8] The team did not qualify for the semi-finals.

Name and participation

From the early years of the Inter-Provincial tournament to 2004–05 season teams used English names. But from 2007 to 2008 onwards the teams were named in Sinhalese. From its inception of the tournament Western Province presented more than one team to the tournament except for 2003–04 and 2004–05 seasons. Since then Western province teams became known as Basnahira North and Basnahira South. Basnahira is Sinhalese for West. Number of teams representing Western province varied from season to season and their names also. Teams represented Western Province for the each tournament given below.

Team	Season
	1990	1990–91	1992	1993–94	1994–95	2003–04	2004–05	2007–08	2008–09	2009–10	2010–11
Western Province	Western Province	City, Suburbs	Suburbs, North, South	City, North, South		Western Province		North, South			Basnahira

Notable players

The following is a list of players who have represented both Basnahira North and Sri Lanka.^[9]

Kumar Dharmasena Chandika Hathurusinghe Hashan Tillakaratne Aravinda de Silva Sanath Jayasuriya Roshan Jurangpathy Gamini Wickremasinghe Asoka de Silva Graeme Labrooy Kapila Wijegunawardene Champaka Ramanayake Ajith Weerakkody Roshan Mahanama Sanjeeva Ranatunga Chamara Dunusinghe Manjula Munasinghe Nishantha Ranatunga

Dammika Ranatunga Dulip Samaraweera Chaminda Vaas Arjuna Ranatunga Indika de Saram Sajeewa de Silva Hemantha Wickramaratne Dinuka Hettiarachchi Shantha Kalavitigoda Avishka Gunawardene Thilina Kandamby Gayan Wijekoon Nuwan Kulasekara Dammika Prasad Angelo Mathews Niroshan Bandaratilleke

Current squad

The squad for the 2008–09 season as of 22 March 2009.^[5]

Basnahira North current squad
Players	Coaches
Nat. Name Age Pos. Bat st. Bowl st. Chaminda Vaas (Captain) 35 All-rounder LHB LFM Thilina Kandamby 26 Batsman LHB LS Amal Athulathmudali 22 Batsman LHB RFM Ian Daniel 27 Batsman RHB RM Daminda Darshanpriya 25 Bowler RHB RMF Shanuka Dissanayake 31 All-rounder RHB LO Nuwan Pradeep 22 Bowler RHB RFM Saliya Saman 23 All-rounder RHB RFM Nuwan Kulasekara 26 Bowler RHB RFM Angelo Mathews 21 All-rounder RHB RFM Dhanuka Pathirana 26 Batsman RHB OS Bhathiya Perera 31 All-rounder RHB LS Muthumudalige Pushpakumara 27 All-rounder LHB OS Kaushal Silva 22 Wicket keeper RHB Gayan Wijekoon 32 All-rounder LHB RM

Honours

• Inter-Provincial Tournament: 1

2008/09

• Inter-Provincial Limited Overs Tournament:

• Inter-Provincial Twenty20: