Herath joins BCB as spin consultant
Left-arm spin legend Rangana Herath will join the Bangladesh national team as their spin bowling consultant until the T20 World Cup, Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) announced yesterday. Herath was keen to join the local coaching setup but Sri Lanka Cricket showed little interest in hiring him.
This is Herath’s first major coaching role since retiring from international cricket in 2018, having taken more Test wickets than any other left-arm bowler. He has completed his Level 3 coaching course (ICC/SLC) with a specialisation in spin bowling.
He replaces the former New Zealand left-arm spinner Daniel Vettori whose 100-day contract with the BCB ended in April 2021.
New rulers for Kings
and Viikings
The ownerships of Colombo Kings and Dambulla Viiking have been terminated ahead of the second edition of the Lanka Premier League (LPL) due to non-compliance, the event organiser IPG announced yesterday.
The Indian businessman Sachin Joshi, who owned the Dambulla team during the first season was arrested in February this year over his involvement in a money laundering case. Murfad Mustafa of UAE was the owner of the Colombo Kings team.
“Accordingly, the Innovative Production Group FZE (IPG) has received multiple requests from many interested parties and in compliance with the contractual obligation of the IPG and Sri Lanka Cricket, for the said League, as well as in keeping with the requirement of the International Cricket Council (ICC), have submitted all KYC documents for approval to finalise the new set of owners for the said teams,” a media release by IPG stated.
Generous SLC to the
rescue of Olympians
At a time when national cricketers are up in arms over reduced pay packets, Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) has generously approved Rs. 40 million to fund Sri Lanka’s Olympic bound athletes. Sports Minister Namal Rajapaksa has announced a Rs. 2 million reward for each participating athlete at the Tokyo Olympics but, with empty coffers at his own ministry, he has turned to country’s richest sport body to fund his project.
The Board is keen to maintain goodwill with the Minister and has readily approved the money. Sri Lanka expects to send a total of nine athletes for the Olympics to be held in Japan next month but only one has so far earned qualification while the rest have got their entries through wild-cards and other invitational places.
Signs bartered by Sacks
Sri Lanka Cricket has sacked five cricketers from a Sri Lanka ‘A’ team training camp after players refused to sign the cricket contracts offered to them. Vishva Fernando, Lasith Embuldeniya, Lahiru Kumara, Ashen Bandara and Kasun Rajitha were selected to take part in a residential training in Dambulla ahead of future international matches but were asked to go home.
These five were among 38 national cricketers protesting over the new-performance based cricket contracts, demanding transparency in the player grading system.
However, they had offered to take part in the training camp since the wider issue regarding central contracts is yet to be solved. SLC and players were involved in a major dispute ahead of the current series in England before SLC took a step back and agreed to release the player evaluation on the team’s return to the island. But the players’ bargaining power has further diminished following the current sorry state of the national team. Sri Lanka succumbed meekly to the Englishmen in the first two matches of the T20 series, conceding the series.