By Shamseer Jaleel

Former Antonian, Bloomfield, Moors, SSC cricketer and National test player, Piyal Wijetunge was appointed as the National Spin Head Coach recently.

Piyal played alongside some great cricketers from 1986 to 1990 for the Antonians such as Muttiah Muralitharan, Ruwan Kalpage, Suresh Peiris, Zamique Muthalib, Shahib Thariqshad, Damian Nadaraja and Nimalka Perera to name a few. Surprisingly Piyal featured only in one test match for the national team against South Africa which was played at Moratuwa.

The three Antonian spinners, Ruwan Kalpage, Piyal Wijetunge and Muttiah Muralitharan all three created a record by representing the national team at the Moratuwa Test in 1993. The left arm spinner, Piyal became the best All Island bowler in the year 1990 taking over 100 wickets in that school season.

Piyal then represented Moors SC, Bloomfield AC and SSC in club cricket before taking over coaching at his alma mater from 2003 to 2005. As a Provincial Coach of Sri Lanka Cricket he was in charge of the Uva Province and a year later was the Assistant Spin coach of the national team under his school mate Ruwan Kalpage. 

Piyal was in charge of the National spinners from 2008 to 2019 and worked alongside Ragana Herath in 2020 searching for talent in the island district wise which was hampered by COVID and came to an abrupt end.

Forty-year-old Piyal Wijetunge who has done yeoman service for his school and country has taken over the National Spin Coach with effective from 1 June and will make his maiden appearance when the Indian team tours Sri Lanka next month.

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