Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) yesterday shortlisted two candidates Marvan Atapattu and Englishman Jhone Lewis for the post of permanent Head Coach after the completion of the initial interviews held in Colombo yesterday.
However, the decision to name Atapattu and Lewis from a panel of nine international coaches took place amidst controversy as one of the members of the coach-selection committee and Chairman of the National Selection Committee Sanath Jayasuriya controversially resigned last morning.
An attempt made by Ceylon Today to contact Sanath Jayasuriya turned out to be futile, as he had switched off his cell phone.
The rest of the members in the coach-selection committee are SLC Secretary Nishantha Ranatunga, Head of Coaching Jerome Jayaratne, Vice-Presidents Asanga Seneviratne and Mohan de Silva, Assistant Secretary Hirantha Perera, Treasurer Nuski Mohamed, Executive Committee Members Jayananda Warnaweera and Shammi Silva, and, Dushan Soza, and Ranjit Fernando.
Meanwhile Jhone Lewis the second candidate for the post of Head Coach is currently attached to the county Durham and has a first class aggregate of over ten thousand runs to his credit from 205 matches.
The candidates who were earlier shortlisted by the SLC were Mickey Arthur, Eric Simmons, Dave Nosworthy and Robert Alun Walter (all from South Africa), James Siddons (Australia), Jhone Lewis and Mark Ramprakash (both England) and Marvan Atapattu.
The names of the two candidates will be presented to the next Executive Committee Meeting of the SLC today and the final announcement on Sri Lanka’s new Head Coach will be made during the course of the week according to SLC sources.
Atapattu who joined the Sri Lanka staff as a Batting Coach in 2011 has been in charge of the national team as the Interim Coach for the last three Test series’ against England, South Africa and Pakistan.
He was promoted to Assistant Coach last year and under his guidance Sri Lanka went onto create history as they recorded their maiden Test series victory on English soil in June/July this year.
Sri Lanka also enjoyed success in the recent home Test and One Day International series against Pakistan.
The post of head coach of the Sri Lanka cricket team has been vacant ever since the departure of former coach Paul Farbrace who created a turmoil abruptly ending his contract with the SLC in May this year.
Sri Lanka’s next international series will be against England where they are scheduled to play as many as seven one dayers at home in a build up to the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup in Australia/New Zealand.
They are also scheduled to tour New Zealand for a full series which includes two Test matches and seven One Day Internationals in December/January.
