Johann Jayasinha
Editor and publisher of Sports N News (SNNI). Cricket Australia Multicultural Ambassador. For more than two decades, a familiar face wherever cricket and Melbourne's Sri Lankan community meet.
Johann Jayasinha founded Sports N News as a Melbourne-based sports and community media business in the early 2000s, trading under the SNNI name since 2004. Operating as SNNI Australia, he has built a body of work that sits across two worlds: the professional cricket circuit, and the clubs, old boys' associations, temples, churches and charities that make up Sri Lankan life in Victoria.
Cricket
Cricket Australia named Johann one of its inaugural Multicultural Ambassadors, a group that also includes Wasim Akram, Ravi Shastri and Usman Khawaja. The program was created to help the game reach Australia's multicultural communities. Cricket Australia's own profile describes him as the National Operations and Media Manager at SNNI Australia, with more than two decades of experience in domestic and international cricket.
His connection with the game has also been hands-on. In 2021 he was part of the four-person organising committee behind the Caught Mahanama Bowled Vaas Trophy, a charity match between a Diplomats XI and a Victorian Stars side, arranged in consultation with Sri Lankan greats Roshan Mahanama and Chaminda Vaas. The match raised $5,010 for two charities. The same year he documented the Melbourne celebration of the 25th anniversary of Sri Lanka's 1996 World Cup win, an evening that raised $4,000 for the Indra Cancer Trust.
Community reporting
Johann's reports and photographs of Melbourne's Sri Lankan community have appeared for years on eLanka, where he writes as Johann Dias Jayasinha, covering everything from cricket dinners with Cricket Australia officials to cultural festivals, fundraisers and community business launches. His coverage has also been carried in Sri Lanka by The Island, credited to SNNI Australia, including its reporting on the Trinity College Kandy Old Boys' Association's Dance of the Lions gala in Melbourne.
Editing SNNI
As editor, Johann sets SNNI's priorities: cricket first, Sri Lankan sport and the Sri Lankan community in Australia close behind, and the Melbourne sporting and community stories that rarely get told elsewhere. He is responsible for every story published on the site. Readers can read how SNNI reports in our editorial standards.
Get in touch
Story tips, event invitations, corrections and media enquiries go to johann@snni.com.au. Community organisations are welcome to send details of upcoming events and results, with photos and the photographer's name.