The majority of foreign coaches, whom the Sri Lanka Cricket Board (SLC) has shortlisted for the various positions, have shown their reservations to join the setup before the presidential election, Cricket Age reliably learns.
The much awaited presidential election is scheduled for November 16. While Sajith Premadasa is representing the ruling UNP, Gotabaya Rajapaksa is contesting as main opposition candidate.
On November 9, Cricket Age had published that SLC is set to appoint new coaches for national team and high performance centre at Khetterama in next few days.
Currently, national team’s head coach Chandika Hathurasingha is facing a suspension for not delivering results, while another former player Asanka Gurusinha has been removed as incharge of HPC, as he too miserably failed to uplift the standard of the high performance coaches at Khetterama.
Accordingly, fast bowling coach Romesh Ratnayake is shouldering the responsibility as interim coach of the national team, while SLC COO Jerome Jayaratne has been added as consultant coach.
Cricket Age understands that even though SLC has finalized new coaches for said positions, the board will have to wait at least until November 16 to finalize contracts. Reason, the shortlisted coaches, all foreigners and we’ll reputed, don’t want to join Sri Lanka cricket before the results of presidential election.
“They have shown reservations, thus, have requested the board to sign the contracts and announce their names only after November 16” a top SLC official told Cricket Age.
The general perception is going around Sri Lanka Cricket that after November 16, things can be dramatically changed at SLC. In these sort of uncertainty, the foreign coaches don’t want to join the setup before the result. The history of SLC says that coaches are the once who suffered most, whenever Maitland place sees changes in the administration.
Sri Lanka, in any case, has no immediate concern to get coaches on board, as the national team’s next assignment is scheduled for December, a test series against Pakistan.
