Chris Silverwood’s resignation has led to the appointment of Sanath Jayasuriya as Sri Lanka’s new national cricket team head coach, the former cricketer announced on Monday. The decision followed Silverwood’s departure from the team due to “personal reasons” after a premature exit from T20 World Cup.
Jayasuriya will assume duties once T20 Lanka premier League ends on 21 July.
Telling AFP, Jayasuriya said, “I have been asked to take over coaching and I am happy to do it.”
The 55-year-old ex-Test and ODI captain was also a national selector.
This month, SL Cricket approached Sanath Jayasuriya about coaching the national squad during their white ball series against India and tour of England in August.
He has previously served as a national selector and represents his country with an experience of playing 586 times across Test, ODI and T20 formats where he scored 42 centuries and took 440 wickets.
He played his last international match in 2011.
Silverwood quit after Sri Lanka failed to impress at the T20 WC as they could only manage one victory against Netherlands finishing third in group which included South Africa and Bangladesh respectively.
However, despite winning Asia Cup (T20) in 2022 defeating Pakistan by five wickets at Khulna (Bangladesh) reached final losing to India by massive margin (6 wickets) Team SL remains unsuccessful in progressing beyond knockout stages of recent cricket world cups either for men or women teams regardless of format played.
Accordingly; Mahela Jayawardena also resigned as consultant coach recently, another indication that major changes are occurring within the national side’s coaching panel.
