SLC wants bigger role from MJ moving forward

by Rex Clementine

Sri Lanka Cricket has given thumbs up for the Cricket Committee’s move to rope in former captain Mahela Jayawardene to the national cricket team’s coaching staff after the exit of Mickey Arthur.

The tenure of Arthur, who joined SLC in December 2019, will end in two weeks time following the completion of the two match Test series against West Indies. Jayawardene’s role will not be as Head Coach but as a Consultant Coach. However, he will have a larger clout on how the team is run.

The proposal is to rope in Jayawardene as one of the Consultant Coaches possibly on a two year tenure with several recently retired players like Rangana Herath, Nuwan Kulasekara and Lasith Malinga joining as Consultant Coaches. Jayawardene will shuttle between the national team, Sri Lanka ‘A’ team and the Under-19 team during his stint and will be free to honour his commitments with franchises such as Mumbai Indians and Southern Brave.

SLC sources told The Island that they are going to take a leaf out of India’s book and will rely heavily on local coaching talents and will look out overseas only for a Head Coach that too if they are unable to appoint someone locally.

“We would be delighted if Mahela agrees to come on board. You could see the difference he made when he was with the side in UAE and the feedback that we had from the players and coaching staff was excellent,” an SLC official told The Island.

The Island learns that Jayawardene is reluctant to take up any role with the team if any overseas travel is invovled and he will work with the team mostly in Colombo. He has also made it clear that there needs to be a structure and a proper plan before he commits for any role. He is already making the blueprint for the Under-19 team for the upcoming World Cup and the team is believed to be making good progress having blanked Bangladesh 5-0. Bangladesh are the reigning Youth World Champions.

Jayawardene is supposed to have told the Cricket Committee the most vital aspect is to develop teams at grassroots levels rather than the spending extensive time with the senior team.

Already there’s change of approach in picking the team for next year’s Youth World Cup in the Caribbean as rather than giving prominence for players who do well in two day inter-school games, those players who are good in white ball cricket are getting preference.

Meanwhile, although, there were indications earlier on that Roshan Mahanama would fill in the role of Head Coach, now it seems that SLC is keen on having him as Director Cricket sidestepping Tom Moody.

Mickey Arthur yesterday confirmed that he will be joining English county Derbyshire after SLC indicated that his contract will not be renewed. Arthur took up as SLC Head Coach in December 2019 and had a turbulent time with a series of injuries to key players and three of his leading players suspended. He has rebuilt the side well banking on a host of untested young players and was just starting to turn things around during the recent T-20 World Cup in UAE.