Sudarshana brought in as Batting Coach

Sri Lanka Under-19 coach Dhammika Sudarshana will take charge as the Batting Coach of the national cricket team with Grant Flower in isolation after testing positive for Covid.

by Rex Clementine

Sri Lanka Cricket has brought in their Under-19 coach to fill in for Grant Flower, the Batting Coach of the national cricket team.

Flower tested positive for COVID and currently is in isolation.

SLC had other senior coaches to look after batting like former Test cricketer Roy Dias, former captain Hashan Tillekeratne, Ruvin Peiris or Malintha Warnapura, but the board opted for Sudarshana, who joined SLC this year.

Sudarshana is a highly rated coach who made Richmond College, Galle the most successful cricket playing school in the island in the last decade. Many current Sri Lanka players have passed out from Richmond while Sudarshana was in charge. Some of those players are Dhananjaya de Silva, Wanindu Hasaranga, Charith Asalanka and Dhananjaya Lakshan.

SLC sources said that Sudarshana was preferred for a variety of reasons. He had been apparently in a bubble and this will be a short stint.

Board sources indicated that they were looking at Flower’s role with the team after continuous batting failures. After the India series, he is likely to be retained with the High Performance Center at RPS. The new batting coach could be a Sri Lankan.

With Head Coach Mickey Arthur and the coaching staff, closest contacts of Flower still in isolation, yesterday’s training session was conducted by spin bowling coach Piyal Wijetunga, another committed, respected cricket coach.

Arthur and rest of the coaching staff will be tested today morning and if their PCRs are negative, they will be attending training from today onwards.

The six match limited overs series was pushed back by five days after two positive cases were identified within the bubble. The players were tested on Sunday and all turned negative.

Although India’s leading players like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah are not part of the squad, this is still a strong Indian side with captain Shikhar Dhawan and deputy Bhubaneswar Kumar having represented India in over 100 ODIs. Kuldeep Yasav, Yuzvendra Chahal and Hardik Pandya have played over 50 ODIs. With Danushka Gunatilleke, Kusal Mendis and Niroshan Dickwella suspended, Sri Lanka are really thin on experience. Kusal Janith Perera with 107 games is the most experienced followed by Dhananjaya de Silva with exactly 50 games.

The first ODI will take place on Sunday. All games will be played at RPS.