Dilruwan Jayarathne
Sri Lanka has many ‘firsts’ in its history and the husband-and-wife combination handling women’s and girls’ cricket could be another in its ever-growing list.
The fate of Sri Lanka women’s cricket is now in the hands of former Sri Lanka Test Captain Hashan Tillakaratne and his wife Apsari Tillakaratne. While Apsari scouts for talent at grassroot level from the outstations and oversees development and promoting cricket amongst the schools, Hashan is the Head Coach of the national cricket team preparing them for the international matches ahead. The immediate task for Hashan is to get the national women cricketers up and running in readiness for the 2021 Women’s Cricket World Cup Qualifier in Zimbabwe in November-December where the top three teams from the qualifier will progress to the 2022 Women’s Cricket World Cup in New Zealand.
Both are political stooges who keep getting well paid jobs at the cricket board. With Hashan’s kids playing professional cricket, he should never have been involved in youth cricket because it was a clear conflict of interest but he was involved in the Under 19 team and team selections and picked his own sons.