Lanka Youths battling time ahead of WC
Avishka Gunawardene
The newly appointed Sri Lanka Under-19 coach, Avishka Gunawardene admits that ‘there’s work to be done’ as
Sri Lanka race against time to prepare their youth team for next year’s ICC U-19 World Cup.
With around 100 days to go for the World Cup, the team is expected to resume training mid-this week, having lost at least a good 18-months of cricket due to the pandemic that is sweeping across the country.
“There’s work to be done,” conceded Gunawardene, who took over the head coach position last week.
“Roughly we have about 100 days left for the World Cup and we will have at least two home series against Bangladesh and England this year. Then we have the Asia Cup. So we want to make the best use of these two tours and the Asia Cup to get ourselves prepared for the World Cup.”
According Gunawardene, Bangladesh is due to play a five-match Youth ODI series next month while the young Englishmen will arrive here in November for another five-match series.
“There was lot of planning to do and hopefully we can get them to start training from mid-this week,” he added.
The team is expected to use SSC for their three-week training programme since the national team accommodates the Khettarama training center. The selectors had already named a 26-member squad in view of the Youth World Cup and Gunawardene believes there’s provision to add four more names as the International Cricket Council allows a squad of 30 players due to the COVID-19 situation.
Sri Lanka’s best performance at the Youth World Cup was when they hosted the tournament in 2000. They reached the finals but India beat them handsomely to lift the title. Since then Sri Lanka has struggled to make its mark at the global showpiece. This will be Gunwardene’s first major coaching role since being cleared of corruption charges by the ICC in May. Two years ago he was charged for corruption and remained suspended until he was cleared in May this year.
Gunawardene, who has had previous stints with Sri Lanka’s Under-19 team and the Sri Lanka ‘A’ team, had maintained his innocence right through the process.
“It was a tough phase,” he said.
“Now that everything is sorted, I am ready to get back into coaching and give my best.”