by Rex Clementine
With the appointment of Ruwan Kalpage as the coach of the Sri Lanka ‘A’ team, the young Sri Lankan cricketers have received their fourth coach in nine months. The former Sri Lanka all-rounder has been appointed for the forthcoming India ‘A’ series. Chandika Haturusinghe, who guided the side during Sri Lanka’s successful campaign in a One Day Tournament in Namibia, has not been even asked of his availability. Former fast bowler Graham Labroy has been given the post of manager, a position Roshan Mahanama held along with the post of head coach for a six month period. Hemantha Devapriya, who held the post of coach has been demoted to function as the coach of the Sri Lanka Development Squad.

Bandula Warnapura, the Operations Director of the Board of Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka, admitted that the constant change of coaches is not going to help the cricketers and revealed that the post is going to be made a permanent one soon. Cricket Board authorities are to call for the applications for the post of coach of the A team soon and it’s expected that an appropriate appointment will be made ether at the completion of the Indian series or during the series.

In all probability, Kalpage, who has functioned as the fielding coach of the Cricket Board for a while now will be elevated for the post of coach. Kalpage, only 32 years old is one of the few Sri Lankans who has completed the Australian Cricket Board’s (ACB) Level 2 coaching programme. Haturusinghe too is a proud owner of a (ACB) Level 2 coaching certificate, but he admits he’s not prepared to take up a full time job in coaching right now as he still feels that he can make a come back to the national cricket team. In the Premier season, Haturusinghe, captained Moors and scored 634 runs in 18 innings with two hundreds and four fifties. He too captured 30 wickets at 17.9 apiece and was named as the player of the tournament.