Former Sri Lankan skipper Kumar Sangakkara said that he feels it is former shadow coach, Chandika Haturusinghe, who should be in charge of the Lankan squad as National Coach.
He made these comments at a pre-match briefing on Thursday where he spoke to the press about winning the ICC’s ODI player and People's Choice Awards, and also addressed the matter of him playing in his one hundredth Test. He said, “My preference has been publicly known to everyone.
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| Chandika
Haturusinghe |
I think we have a great opportunity to have a completely Sri Lankan coaching unit. That would be amazing if we can do it. We had candidates of the calibre of Chandika Haturusinghe, who is now the assistant coach at New South Wales, which is a great loss to us.
He made an amazing contribution to our cricket and he is an extremely capable coach. Rumesh Ratnayake also has been exemplary. Unfortunately he has come at a time when we’ve had quite a bad series. But these two people have shown that we have the quality to have a completely Sri Lankan coaching unit, which we can be proud of, second to none in the world.”
However he also pointed out, “If the administration and the captain think that is the way to go that is the way to go, there is absolutely no problem with that.
“There are many excellent coaches around the world. I know for a fact there was Graham Ford, Geoff Marsh and a lot of others in the running for this job and all of them are fantastic people with a great track record and they have proven themselves all over the world. So any one of them would be a great addition to our cricket. But, on a very personal, but not sentimental note, we have quality in Sri Lanka as well – one of them is not in Sri Lanka now – coaching New South Wales, but we have the people capable of becoming national coaches in Sri Lanka. “
According to SLC insiders however, their understanding with former Australian coach Geoff Marsh is almost sealed and he should be taking over the Lankan reins very soon.
Who are volunteers?
Now the discussion around Maitland Place is as to why, when SLC’s OD interest is in the region of Rs.10 million a month and the authorities have cut down on the free lunches given to its employees, a sum of Rs. 600,000 was drawn to be given to volunteers for the two T-20s and the first ODI.
It alleged that this money was drawn to be given to a person who has a bulk of votes in his pocket, who brought a bunch of his acolytes to Pallekelle when there were enough local people in the area at hand. |
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