Dineth Fernando has been in Australia for less than a year and has already brought home a world youth title for his country.

The 14-year-old triumphed at the World Youth Scrabble Championship in Nairobi recently, defeating 140 competitors from across the world.

Fernando, who originally hails from Sri Lanka, credited the win to a steady diet of practising 200 words a day from the board game’s official dictionary.

The Melbourne-based teenager, for whom English is his second language, said the game had helped him find his feet in Australia and make friends.

He said that he got into the game when he was eight years old through school. He took a liking to the game, competing in national championships in 2022 and 2024. In July this year, he won the Australian Youth Scrabble Championship, inspiring him to compete at the world youth event.

He said Scrabble was very popular in Sri Lanka because of competitions held between schools. “There are school Scrabble clubs and it’s extremely competitive.”

While he has achieved a great feat in a language game, Fernando hopes to be a doctor one day and said he had an interest in mathematics and science.

His father, Prasanna Fernando, who was a medical doctor in Sri Lanka, said the family had moved to Australia in February this year owing to his study and work.

Fernando said that he was very proud of his son winning the championship, especially given the 25 hours of flying time to the Kenyan capital, which was at times threatened by the war between the US and Iran.

“It feels as if it’s a dream,” Prasanna Fernando said. “I knew that he would one day win it, but it’s still surreal. At the last moment I thought we would take the risk and the two of us would go. So luckily it paid off and I’m delighted about it.”

Prasanna also credited Coach Raashid Sudin, who had worked with Dineth for several years. He further noted that countries like Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Thailand encouraged the game because of its benefits in academics and sportsmanship, adding that in contrast, Australia did not have much school-level Scrabble.

Youth Australia Scrabbler Players Association President Tony Hunt said that just one school in Australia had Scrabble as a part of the curriculum – Cabramatta Public School in Sydney’s south-west. He said some gifted and talented programmes in Victoria offered Scrabble as an extension activity.

Hunt added that he would like to see the board game rolled out into more schools.

“We want other people to think of it as a sport, but a sport that addresses literacy and numeracy,” he said.

“We would like educators to consider Scrabble as an extension activity for [gifted and talented] kids. Number one, they’re going to be good at it, and number two, they’re going to like it.”

(Source: Agencies)