Cricket Website Wins 'Best Entertainment Website' In Sri Lanka Web Awards

Online, October 30, 2010 (Newswire.com) - The annual 'Best Web' awards organised by the Sri Lanka domain registry took off with an overwhelming response this year, and saw hundreds of websites nominated for various categories including, 'Best Corporate Website', 'Best Entertainment Website' and 'Best E-commerce Website'.

The organiser of the event, the Sri Lanka domain registry, is the government institution that issues and administers .LK domain names.

Amongst the winners this year are Sri Lanka's largest retailers, hotels and corporate entities.

The 200 year old British colonial styled hotel, The Mount Lavinia Hotel (http://www.mountlaviniahotel.lk/) took home the Gold Award for the Best Corporate Website. While Sri Lanka's retail powerhouse, Odel (http://www.odel.lk/), took the top prize for the second year running for Best E-commerce Website.

But amongst the big names and the big budget websites, Sri Lanka's first and only cricket fan site, Island Cricket (http://www.islandcricket.lk/), took center stage to win the 'Best Entertainment Website' for 2010.

Powered by User Generated Content (UGC), Island Cricket caters to the Sri Lanka cricket enthusiast. Cricket fans sign up free to submit photos of Sri Lankan players on and off the field, and create their own cricket blogs to publish their passionate views on Sri Lanka's most popular sport, amongst many other functionalities of the content rich website.

Launched in 2008 by founder, owner and developer of Island Cricket, Hilal Suhaib, the website has received remarkable accolades in its brief existence. In May this year, the prestigious British newspaper, The Times of London, included Island Cricket in its '50 best cricket websites' list.

However, the man behind the concept and creation of Island Cricket remains modest.

"We are a very small operation driven totally by a community of Sri Lankan cricket fans, only motivated by the love for Sri Lanka cricket" insists Suhaib. "Being awarded the Best Entertainment Website award is a huge achievement for the entire community and all our contributors.

"Our members contribute content you just can't find anywhere else. That's the secret to our success. This is a victory for them," he added.

Island Cricket provides Sri Lanka cricket fans with a unique concept where registered users can submit breaking cricket news pertaining to Sri Lankan cricket, photographs, videos, polls, quotes and blogs.

"A registered and logged-in user has several submission forms to post content on our site. But everything is very user-friendly," Suhaib explained.

"For example, if you saw a video clip on Youtube and you wanted to post a video on Island Cricket to share it with other fans, you would then navigate to the video submission form, enter the title to the video, insert the URL or embed code to the video into the next field, add an optional link to a scorecard, and submit; its that easy.

"Similarly, our Sri Lankan cricket quotes section is also user submitted.

"If you find an interesting quote by a Sri Lankan player, you would navigate to the quote submission form, enter the name of the person you are quoting, paste over the quote in the next field, enter a link to the source of the quote and submit," he further explained.

This unique concept powered by thousands of cricket fans from around the globe has not only generated a large archive of rare photos and videos, but also serves as a valuable aggregator of news. You are likely to find every breaking news story relating to the island's cricket team from news sources around the globe, here.

"We are not a site just for Sri Lankans either. We have members from India, West Indies, Canada, Europe and the USA who aren't Sri Lankans, but support Sri Lanka cricket and follow the progress of our team.

"Now, with broadband internet available in parts of rural Sri Lanka, we reach many Sri Lankan households as well."

Adding to its uniqueness is the fact that Island Cricket is not just an on-line forum type environment. With New Zealand born veteran cricket writer Trevor Chesterfield's column on Island Cricket, readers are presented with a no-nonsense, at times even controversial columnist who dissects the politics and the processes surrounding the island's cricket team and administration.

A former first class umpire, Chesterfield, resided in South Africa for a number of years prior to settling down in the sunny shores of Sri Lanka and launching his column titled: 'My Pavillion Kitbag' on Island Cricket.

Along with their columnists, Island Cricket's own staff writers provide regular news updates, match bulletins and memorable one-on-one interviews with Sri Lankan cricketers.

It is safe to say that similar to last year, this year's 'Best Web' Sri Lanka Web Awards, too, has unearthed yet another gem.

The full list of winners in this year's competition can be found here: http://www.bestweb.lk/results2010.html