Bloomfield in fresh bid to revive cricket

The Bloomfield Cricket and Athletic Club initiated a development project under the theme “Reviving Bloomfield Cricket” to develop and improve the cricketing facilities at the ground premises towards the sustenance of the domestic game in the island.

Domestic cricket is played in Sri Lanka between the clubs which are entirely recognised by the Sri Lankan cricket board and the Bloomfield is known to having a First Class cricket team in the island.

Under the inspection of the Bloomfield’s general committee, the developments of the ground and the club house will be taking a series of steps. According to a member in the committee, “Following the past activities of few careless members, the ground premises and the club house at Reid Avenue started to show unfortunate signs with lack of facilities and not looking much of an inviting place for socialisation for the members. The sole duty of the recently elected committee is to address to these matters and to take the necessary actions to bring back the glorious outlook of the premises while upgrading the facilities especially for the club cricket players”.

The Bloomfield club is known as one of Sri Lanka’s oldest and most distinguished clubs that has produced many national cricketers who have brought fame and glory to our country. Not only the club has won the Premier Trophy for eight times and the Premier Limited Overs’ Tournament five times, but has also produced Sri Lanka’s First Test Captain Bandula Warnapura and a host of other Sri Lankan players like D. S. De Silva, Jayantha Seneviratne, Lalith Kaluperuma, Ajith De Silva, Anura Ranasinghe, Susantha Karunaratne, Sunil Jayasinghe, D.L.S De Silva, Roshan Mahanama, Pubudu Dassanayake, Ruwan Kalpage, Saman Jayantha, Kumara Dharmasena, S. Ilangaratnam, Brendon Kuruppu and Sanath Kaluperuma to name a few and from the current players, Sanath Jayasuriya, Chamara Silva, Prasanna Jayawardena, Chintaka Jayasinghe, Tharanga Lakshita, Suraj Randiv in the Sri Lanka squad.  

The Bloomfield ground is mainly used for First Class matches, List A matches, Twenty20 Matches apart of the other divisional matches. From the 3 February- 29 April 2011, Premier Championship 2010/11 matches are currently held at the ground premises.

 “Within the past three months under the new committee of the club, we are proud to say that the memberships at Bloomfield has again started to rise with new members and past members re-joining and the daily sales revenue at the club house too has shown once again signs of increasing at a rate than we expected, especially with the ongoing world cup matches as we have some promotions for the members who come to watch the matches on screen, giving the Bloomfields hope of a promising future added the current development projects at the premises”.  

The developments of the ground located at the most prime location in Colombo 07 will also include inviting prospective banks for ATMs and opening few outlets around the ground to better serve the commuters and public apart of the members and the school children who come for practices especially during weekends, re-developing the kiddies fun area, upgrading of the gymnasium for the members and other vital facilities for the team players to name a few including setting up the new score board.  Part of the initial development project funds will be raised through hiring space for outdoor advertising around the ground premises giving branding opportunities which will also entail the sponsors and advertisers to reap high returns in terms of visibility and exposure from the location.