Hashan and Pramodhya appointed as selectors

Former captain and UNP organiser Hashan Tillakaratne and opening pace bowler Pramodhya Wickramasinghe have been officially appointed as selectors, the Sports Ministry announced yesterday.

Thillakaratne’s appointment comes as Hemantha Wickramaratne resigned as a full-time selector, but will still remain in the panel.

They will be joined by Chaminda Mendis and Eric Upashantha.

The appointments were earlier announced at a press conference by new Chairman of Selectors Sanath Jayasuriya.

While introducing the new selectors, Jayasuriya expressed confidence that the new panel would be better suited to handling any issues.

Jayasuriya also promised an inclusive, hands-on approach from the new five-member selection panel.

Wickramasinghe’s responsibility will be to lead the search for raw talent at school and club level as well as work closely with the national squad in order to get a more comprehensive approach to team selection issues.

In a much-needed and welcome move, Jayasuriya also stated that his first order of the day would be the issuing of an official circular to all clubs, which would request them to forward a list of six names of the best players from each club line-up, who would be put through an exhaustive training and selection procedure for possible future national squad call-ups.

Jayasuriya added that the selection panel hadn’t met for discussions on the makeup of the ODI and T20 teams as yet and would only decide on the issue depending on the cricketing calendar for the year.

He remained noncommittal when pushed for comment on the future of the two former captains in the shorter versions of the game.