Having desperate to clean the image at any cost, Sri Lanka Cricket Board (SLC) is trying every trick to convince Cricket made public that they are most suitable administrators to bring back the glory days. In the process, SLC has filled the national team dressing room with almost all the foreigners or with those who are originally Sri Lankans, but have been migrated there. Other one or two are also foreigners.
Chandika Hathurusingha, The most high profile hiring in the history of Sri Lanka cricket, family lives in Australia. Whenever either the board ditches him or he ditches the board, he goes to Australia to start new innings!
Thilan Samaraweera, the batting Coach lives in Australia with his young family. He migrated to Australia immediately after the retirement.
Romesh Rathnayake, the bowling Coach, has now also migrated to Australia. Team’s Physio Nirmalan Thanabalasingham has also migrated in the same country.
To make things more interesting, The multitasking Manager Asanka Gurusinha had been a resident of Australia for last twelve years, before Thilanga Sumathipala convinced him to return to Sri Lanka to take over the everything of the team!
Only hard working Nic Pothas doesn’t belongs to Australia. But, he too is from another foreign country South Africa, and not a Sri Lankan.
Simon Willis, the high performance manager of the Sri Lanka Cricket is a mystery! No one knows what he does, however he gets a mind boggling salary plus all other perks. More importantly, he has been notorious for going to holidays, whenever team needs his expertise.
In reality, with this sort of world class support staff, Sri Lanka team should have been amongst top three cricket playing nations in the world. Instead, team has been languishing at number six in test rankings and at number eight in ODI and T20 format.
Now, look the another picture. Mahela Jayawardene, probably the best cricket mind in Sri Lanka cricket history, Kumar Sangakkara, the best batsman country has ever produced, and Muttiah Muralitharan, the greatest bowler in the history of the game, have been not worth for Sumathipala and Co. Murali is giving his invaluable experience to Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL and also the bowling consultant of Indian Ranji team Bengal. Jayawardene took over as the head Coach of The richest IPL franchise Mumbai Indians and won the trophy in his first attempt itself. Sangakkara is still playing T20 leagues around the globe and a pearl for young dressing rooms.
However, as usually, SLC has nothing to do with it. When they can’t recognize the talents like Chaminda Vaas, Avishka Gunawardana and Charith Senanayake, who are already in their disposal, so one can’t expect that they will recognize Mahela, Sanga and Murali!
