ICC Champions Trophy 2009 - Selection Blunder

Sri Lankan squad for the champion trophy is as follows.

Kumar Sangakkara (captain), Muttiah Muralitharan, Sanath Jayasuriya, Tillekeratne Dilshan, Mahela Jayawardena, Upul Tharanga, Thilan Samaraweera, Chamara Kapegedera, Angelo Mathews, Nuwan Kulasekera, Thilan Thushara Mirando, Thilina Kandamby, Dhammika Prasad, Ajantha Mendis, Lasith Malinga.

Including Upul Tharanga in the squad is a real blunder. Surely Sanath Jayasuriya and Dilshan will open the innings in every match. So why include Tharanga. He will just be a passenger in this tour. If one of the opening batter gets injured Someone like Mahela or Kumar can open. Tharanga's place should have gone to a fast bowler, Maharoof or Dilhara Fernado. Lasith Malinga was also not doing great in ODI matches recently. Maharoof has the batting ability too. He did well against touring Pakistan A team.

What is Mahela doing at No 3.

Mahela Jayawardana is a really good stroke maker of Sri Lanka. He is fluent on both sides of the wickets and has the ability of playing innovative shots like Dilshan. Last Pakistan series when Jayasuriya was absence due to an illness he opened the innings and scored a brilliant century. Ever since that innings Sri Lanka team has decided to send Mahela at No 3 instead of Kumar to play agrresively and take advantage of the power plays. Since that century Mahela has failed in at No 3. Sri Lanka has two very attacking batmen at the top that is Sanath and Dilshan. Because of that No 3 should play solidly and try to consolidate. Kumar is the ideal man to do that. Since Sri Lanka has an inexperience middle order Mahela should come at no 4 and try to build a good innigs. It's a real waste to lose Mahela's wicket trying to play aggresively in power plays. In 2006 also Mahela was moved to no 3. He played brilliantly in England but then ran into a lean patch. During the world cup Kumar was again reinserted at No 3. In my opinion Mahela's feet movement was not the best early on in his innigs. So safe option is to send Kumar at no 3 and Mahela at No 4. Hope Sri Lankan team manegement will realize this very soon.

SRI LANKA TEAM - WAYAMBA

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE TWENTY/20 INDIA (8th TO 23rd OCTOBER 2009)

1. Jehan Mubarak (Captain)
2. Jeevantha Kulathunga (Vice Captain )
3. Mahela Jayawardena
4. Mahela Udawatta
5. Thisara Perera
6. Sameera Soysa
7. Ajantha Mendis
8. Shalika Karunanayake
9. Isuru Udana
10. Ishara Amarasinghe
11. Chanaka Welagedara
12. Rangana Hearath
13. M.F. Maharoof
14. Kaushlya Lokuarchchi
15. M. Vandort

Team Officials:

1. Asoka Pathirana - Manager
2. Ranjith Madurusinghe - Provincial Representative
3. Vinothen John - Selector

Supports Staff:

1. Manoj Abeywickrama - Coach
2. Uditha Bandara - Physiotherapist
3. D.S. N.Premaratne - Masseur
4. Sanath Jayasundara - Computer Analyst

Lanka De Silva - Asst. Coach / Fielding Coach

How to Convert RPC/encoded WSDL into a Document/literal Wrapped WSDL

In Sri Lanka every engineering graduate has to under go six months of industrial training at an engineering firm in order to fulfill the requirements of the degree programe. I had the oppertunity of joining WSO2 which is a one of the leading software companies in Sri Lanka. They develop middleware for web services. Other thing about WSO2 is that all of their products are open source. It was a great learning experience and I am sure experience I gathered during my training will help me immensly in my future career as a software engineer. I thank WSO2 for providing me the training oppertunity. After the training I am more keen on open source projects.

During the training I had to convert a RPC/encoded WSDL into a Document/Literal WSDL. I wrote an article how to do that and published in the WSO2 community portal. Here is the link.