By JARROD POTTER
BERWICK Cricket Club unveiled the premier signing of the Dandenong District Cricket Association (DDCA) Twenty20 season on Wednesday night – bringing in former Sri Lankan Test batsman Thilan Samaraweera.
Samaraweera, 37, is the brother-in-law of Berwick’s current import player Bathiya Perera and the Sri Lankan international batsman said it was great to play with him once again in the Twenty20 match against Dingley on Wednesday night.
“Yeah, it’s a bit more different – come all the way from Bangladesh and I got a break and thought I’d play as this is the closest one to my house and my brother-in-law is playing,” Samaraweera said.
“It’s really exciting, nice place (Berwick), and looking forward to the T20 competition.”
“It’s great (playing with Perera), I played with him for the Sri Lanka A team, this is not new to me, but looking forward to playing for a different culture and different club.”
Samaraweera made a huge impact in his first outing as a Bear – blasting 91 off 54 balls, with 12 boundaries and two sixes he smashed about Arch Brown Reserve.
Berwick captain Jarrod Goodes said it was great to bring a Test-quality player to the club and hoped in the future he could also pull on the whites in the longer format for the Bears.
“It’s not every day you get a player of Thilan’s calibre obviously and we’re pretty lucky that we have Bathiya Perera as it is and his brother-in-law is Thilan and he’s come available for a couple of Twenty20s, which is great,” Goodes said.
“We’d like to do that one day (have Samaraweera play regular season), but it’s just in the blue gear for the moment.”
Berwick (2/156) defeated Dingley (7/154) with Damien Quinlan snaring 4/21 with the ball and Berwick opener Ryan Williamson scoring 34 as part of a 122-run partnership with Samaraweera.
