Head of Sri Lanka Cricket Technical Advisory Committee, Aravinda de Silva gave insights into the role of the committee and their recommendations to SLC during an online chat show hosted by Russel Arnold on YouTube.
The former Sri Lankan captain mentioned that the present downfall of Sri Lankan cricket has a “lot to do with what we have done in the past.”
He addressed the issues in Sri Lanka cricket while drawing the line clear for everyone as to where the committee stands in the process.
“There are certain areas to be improved. So, what we are looking at is those areas.
One thing is clear, we are not getting involved in running the cricket board daily. Or selecting players, or deciding what sort of tour arrangements or what sort of staff there should be. But we feel there should be a proper process set in place like a corporate to handle cricket matters. And we are also looking at the cricketing areas, because there are a lot of other things which need to be done from the cricket board point of view, going into the finances and things like that are not our area.” said the maestro.
Leading into their task with rebuilding cricket in Sri Lanka he said, “our main criteria is to look at the first-class structure and see what needs to be done to improve the structure and then look at the coaching staff and how we need to improve their knowledge and what sort of coaching policy we need to adapt for Sri Lanka. Then we need to look at the entire structure of how we can get the knowledge of the support staff enhanced. So that when we develop a structure, through that we will develop not only cricketers but administrators, curators, umpires, match referees all these guys will come through from schools cricket up to national cricket. And through that process, we will be able to look after these cricketers even after their cricketing career.”
“So basically those are the areas that we are working on but a lot of people are expecting us to do magic by getting the team’s performance to change overnight.”
Another aspect De Silva stressed extensively is the quality of the coaching. There was also a buzz in social media recently about the effectiveness of Sri Lanka’s coaching staff at present and these comments from the chairman of Sri Lanka’s advisory committee came as more of a clarification.
“The most important thing is the coaching philosophy. We should have one coaching philosophy for the entire country and we should document it. And that should come from the head of the coaching department to have that policy spread around the entire coaching community in the country so that the kids don’t get confused when they go from one coach to the other. The philosophy will be the same as what we were taught in school to go out there and play our natural game. Around that, they build the defences and all that.” He explained.
“I am not a big fan of bringing in foreign coaches either. But when it comes to the national team we bring in foreign coaches to keep the independence. Most of our coaches do not have international exposure. Most of the time, international exposure is the required qualification to become a coach of the national team. Hathurusinghe was in charge for several years and there are a few problems that were created during that time. When we have a Sri Lankan coach, there are issues with the selectors, the coach cannot take an independent decision because he is put under pressure from all corners. So our committee decided that to mitigate this we need an independent character to evaluate these things and give us a report. If it was done by a Sri Lankan then there is going to be several comments on the grounds of favouritism and all that, so that is why we brought in Tom Moody.” he added furthermore.
De Silva also mentioned their plans of using more Sri Lankan coaches in the future. “Even in the future we are looking to develop the knowledge of our coaches and once they are at an adequate level, we are looking to employ them. Let’s say if Mahela is ready to take up the team today, we can bring him down because he has that level of exposure and experience. Now we are looking for coaches for the Sri Lanka A team and the U19 team, once we find someone with these qualifications we will employ them. So it does not matter if it is a Sri Lankan or a foreign coach.”
