Stephen Wallis chats to former Doddington player and March coach Harry Vaheesan

When I caught up with former local cricketer and coach Harry Vaheesan in Colombo, Sri Lanka recently via Zoom, he was in a relaxed and confident mood.

After all, his Jaffna Kings had won the Lanka Premier League for the third successive year on December 23.

The Kings narrowly beat the Colombo Stars by two wickets in the final with only four balls to spare.

Harry, who is the director of cricket and manager of the Jaffna Kings T20 franchise side was previously a player for Doddington and a successful coach at March Town.

The Lanka Premier League is a professional T20 league which includes five franchise teams who originally play on a group basis before proceeding to play offs.

Each team included world stars from the home country and around the world. One of the leading Jaffna players is Shoaib Malik who has represented Pakistan in more than 400 international matches.

“It was fabulous to work with them again. After three years it has become a family,” said Harry

Harry has a close association to Jaffna, as both his parents were born in the region, and he was confident at the start of the competition that the defending champions could retain their crown.

“We had the strongest team on paper but saying that you have to go in the middle and perform, which we did as well,” said Harry.

Jaffna had finished second in the group stage, winning six of their eight matches.

Following a victory in the first qualifier, they then made it through for the final in Colombo.

On a slow wicket, the outsiders Colombo Stars battled their way to 163/5 with former England player Ravi Bopara scoring a crucial 47 off 33 balls.

Jaffna’s reply started with a blaze of boundaries as Afghanistan International opener Rahmanullah Gurbaz struck 36 off only 18 balls.

Sri Lankan internationals Avishka Fernando and Sadeera Samarawickrama then added 72 for the third wicket before a late order collapse saw the Kings lose four wickets between the 17th and 19th over, to leave them in danger of losing their crown in front of a capacity crowd.

“We should have finished it with at least two overs to spare with four or five wickets in hand, but it became very close,” said Harry.

“Perhaps nerves set with players in the middle in, but I was quietly confident.”

Harry hopes to be at the Lanka Premier league again this year, with the event probably being staged in July.

In the meantime, he thought he would be returning to the Fenland area during the summer to catch up with his many cricketing friends.