One of the destructive opening batsmen of Sri Lanka, Sanath Jayasuriya, will be the interim head coach of the team till the series against England.
He will join the team during the home limited-overs series against India and will continue his services till the away test series against England which will end in mid September. He will be in place of Chris Silverwood who left the position after the T20 World Cup.
On his appointment, the SLC (Sri Lanka cricket) chief executive Ashley de Silva said, “Sanath with his wealth of international cricketing experience is well positioned to guide the national team, until we find a permanent solution.”
Not only this, he has been serving as a cricket consultant for the national side for the past few months. Earlier he was appointed as the chief selector of the team but had to leave the position after being alleged of showing preference to the players who were connected to the then government in which he was associated.
He was the leader of the team from 1999-2003 and took his team to the semi final of the 2003 ODI World Cup where the team lost against Australia in the knockout stage. He led the team in 38 test matches and 117 ODI matches.
He scored 13,430 runs in 445 matches in ODI in which he scored 28 centuries and 68 half-centuries. Also he grabbed 323 wickets there in limited overs. In red ball cricket he scored 6973 runs in 110 matches having scored 14 centuries and 37 half-centuries and got 98 wickets to his credit there.