1996 World Cup winning Sri Lankan Asanka Gurusinha has been appointed as the head coach of Nigeria.
Gurusinha will take office at Nigeria Cricket on 1st of December 2020 and will also work as the high-performance manager of Nigeria Cricket.
The 54-year-old is a level 3 certified coach and held duties as the cricket manager for the Sri Lanka national team in 2017 and was also a national selector. Gurusingha has also served as a consultant regional coach for Cricket Australia.
Read More: Asanka Gurusinghe appointed Sri Lanka Cricket Team Manager
Responding to the new appointment, the President of the Nigeria Cricket Federation Prof. Yahaya Adam Ukwenya said, “The appointment of Asanka marks another milestone in this administration’s desire to raise the standard of the game in the country both at the elite and development level. Internally, his appointment will greatly impart on our development structure as we look to begin our Accelerated Growth Program. On the big stage, Nigeria can no longer take a passing interest in World Cricket, we should be able to compete at all levels we play and not just make up the numbers”
බුරුල් ඇණයක් නොවූ රියල් ඇණය – ගුරුසිංහ
Nigeria is an associate member of International Cricket Council and does not feature in the ICC ODI World Cup qualification process yet. However, their Under-19 team managed to qualify for 2020 Youth World Cup after winning the regional qualification round which also featured Kenya and Namibia. They finished as 15th ranked nation in the Youth World Cup.
Their Men’s team’s main focus will be the next qualification process towards the 2022 T20 World Cup where Gurusinha will have a major role to play. In 2019, Nigeria qualified to ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Qualifier but couldn’t become one of the top 6 teams in the competition to book a seat in 2021 T20 World Cup.
