Dilruwan Jayarathne
Sources privy to the appointment told The Morning Sports yesterday (6) that the National Sports Council (NSC) Chairman and Sri Lanka Consultant Coach for all national teams, former Captain Mahela Jayawardene is expected to meet Nawaz in the West Indies where the International Cricket Council (ICC) Under- 19 World Cup will take place from 14 January to 5 February.
Other two Sri Lankan candidates for job vacated by South Africa’s Mickey Arthur in December are Ravindra Pushpakumara and Ruwan Kalpage, both former Sri Lanka cricketers.
If Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC), the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC), and the NSC decide to go with Nawaz, the Under-19 World Cup will be his last assignment with the Bangladesh youngsters.
A few other overseas candidates too have applied for the Sri Lanka Head Coach position, supposedly for the next two-year period.
Jayawardene will anyway be the Coaching Consultant of Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka ‘A’, and Sri Lanka Under-19 for the year 2022.
So we are definitely going local then? This is fine as long as we are not going local for the sake of going local as opposed to the local candidate is best suited to what SLC is looking for. I must admit, if we were going for a foreign coach, Mickey was as good a option as any so the local coach is the go. Worth a look and see where it takes out, especially now that we have Mahela in the hut.