Many foreign applicants for cricket’s Head Coach post

Wednesday, 22 December 2021 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Sri Lanka on the look-out for a successor to Head Coach Mickey Arthur

Quite a number of foreign coaches, along with local coaches, have applied for the job of Head Coach of the Sri Lanka cricket team after Sri Lanka Cricket closed the applications on 14 December.

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) CEO Ashley de Silva said that a lot of foreign coaches from Australia, England, South Africa and all over, as well as locals, have applied for the post left vacant by the departure of Mickey Arthur, who quit the job on the completion of his two-year contract with SLC in the first week of December to take up a new position with English county Derbyshire. “We have shared the summarised applicants with the Technical and Advisory Committee and are in the process of short listing it now,” said de Silva.

“There is a committee which is being appointed by the SLC Executive Committee. Hopefully, we will conduct the interviews by next week because we want to finalise it as quickly as possible. The interviews of the foreign applicants will be conducted virtually, and we will also try to conduct it from our head office.”

Sri Lanka’s next international series is against Zimbabwe at home next month, and De Silva said that by that time if the head coach’s position has not been finalised, they would go to the series with an interim coach.

Zimbabwe are due to arrive on 7 or 8 January and play a three-match ODI series which is part of the 2023 Cricket World Cup Super League where the top eight teams will qualify for the World Cup. Currently, Sri Lanka are lying in sixth position and will want to enhance their qualifying chances with a series win against Zimbabwe, who sits at the bottom in 13th place.De Silva said they are hoping to play the three ODIs against Zimbabwe in mid-January and the venue most probably will be Kandy.

“We also tried to fit in 3 T20Is to the itinerary, but unfortunately we couldn’t because we might have to go to Australia about 14 days before the commencement of the series and therefore, we will not have enough time,” said de Silva.

Sri Lanka are due to play Australia in five T20 Internationals from 11-20 February. (ST)