By Tara Murray
Burnside Springs United has announced Ashan Ranaweera as its coach for the Victorian Turf Cricket Association Russell Pollock Shield season.
The club said after a long and thorough process it had appointed Ranawerra as coach.
“Ashan has played 58 first class games in Sri Lanka before moving to Australia,” the club said on social media.
“Most recently he has been captain-coach of the Sunbury Cricket Club in the VTCA division 3 [division 2],
“Ashan’s vision for the club moving forward has made us all excited for what the future will bring.”
Ranaweera told Star Weekly he was excited for a new challenge.
“I’m really excited,” he said. “There’s a lot of new players and a lot of younger players,” he said.
“Hopefully everything goes well and I’m looking forward to working with them and Darren [Ballie], the president.”
Ranaweera said a friend suggested the role to him saying they had a number of good junior teams.
With a passion for developing young players, the role seemed to be the perfect fit.
“They have good numbers and good facilities,” he said. “It’s a new club with a lot of new faces.
“I have 15 years experience and I was captain-coach last year at Sunbury.
“They need some new leadership here to help bring the juniors up.”
Ranaweera will be captain-coach and help add to Burnside Springs United’s top order, while he can also bowl.
He said Ballie was looking at bringing in some other players, while many of the core group had already re-signed.
Ranaweera said working on the mental side of the game would be one of his focuses, as the club aims to go at least one step further after being knocked out in the semi finals the past two seasons.
The mindset is different in finals,” he said. “The set up of normally compared to finals, they are more excited and everything has changed.
“It’s something we’ll talk about at the start. Working on the mentality is one of my main goals.”
Ballie said they were excited to have Ranaweera on board, with many of the juniors already keen to get to work.
