HOWZAT for determination? A 15-year-old boy who spent years teaching himself to bowl on an all-weather tennis court has been selected for the England deaf cricket team.
Nisal Karunaratne never feels more comfortable than when he has his fingers wrapped about the seam of a cricket ball.
Since he began playing the sport competitively just four years ago he has been picked for the Brentwood School first XI, Essex County Cricket Club youth teams and now the full England Lions development team for the deaf.
Just last month the off-spinning all rounder, who aspires to be a doctor, made his fourth appearance for the Lions against a Kent second XI and next year he hopes to be picked for a tour to South Africa where they will play against the Proteas' deaf XI.
His hearing is at 75 per cent with aids and 45 per cent without.
"Playing for England was the best moment of my life, I felt like I could achieve anything in the world," he said.
Cricket runs in the family. His father, Chanaka, represented Sri Lanka at under-19 level in the 1980s, but Nisal's rise to playing for a national team has been far less straight forward.
When he was a six months old his hearing was permanently damaged after he contracted a superbug at a hospital in Sri Lanka.
Despite this, by the age of ten Nasal joined his first club at Horndon-on-the-Hill, and the following season he made his debut.
And just four years on, the teenager, who was once speechless while meeting his fast bowling hero Lasith Malinga in Sri Lanka, has already bagged personal best bowling figures of 6-10 and 35 with the bat.
But ever since the start of his burgeoning career, aside from some supportive teachers at Brentwood School, Nisal says people have taken him less seriously as a cricketer.
He added: "My disability prevents me from getting on.
"What got me here is just a result of four years of training in the rain with my dad on a tennis court at weekends and after school."
Nisal thinks it is already too late for him to have a chance of playing for the full national team even though the only complication for a deaf cricket player on the pitch is that they rely on their eyesight more because they can't hear teammates' calls.
Nisal, from Basildon, added: "I have achieved what others could not, I am working towards playing for the full deaf England cricket team to take my cricket to a much higher level and I'm determined to get there."
Brentwood School's director of Sport, Ian Wignall, described Nisal making the England Lions deaf team as an "incredible achievement".
"I think he has got the potential to go as far as he wants to go if he continues to work hard. His future is very exciting."
