Samaraweera appointed batting coach

by Champika Fernando

Former Sri Lanka Test cricketer Thilan Samaraweera has been appointed batting coach of the Sri Lanka national team until the 2019 World Cup. He has been given a two-year contract.

Samaraweera, 40 will replace Hashan Thilakaratne who was team’s batting coach during the Pakistan series. After his retirement, Samaraweera migrated to Australia and took up coaching. He has had several stints with various teams including Bangladesh national team as the batting coach.

“He will be our head batting coach up to 2019 World Cup,” said Sri Lanka Cricket President Thilanga Sumathipala.

His first assignment will be the upcoming tour of India where Sri Lanka will play three Tests, three ODIs and three T20 Internationals.

Samaraweera who represented Sri Lanka in 80 Test matches started off as an off-spinner but soon became a solid middle order batsman. He had scored over 5000 Test runs at an average of 48 since making his debut in 2001.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka Cricket today (5) announced that four of its Specialist Consultant Coaches – namely Hashan Thilakaratne, Avishka Gunawardena, Hemantha Devepriya and Oshadi Weerasinghe would be traveling to the UAE later this month to complete their ICC Level 3 Coaching certification.
The Specialists coaches who have been working for the National teams over the past months will participate in the ICC Acadamy Level 3 Coaching Course at the Dubai Sports City on the sponsorship of Sri Lanka Cricket which views it as a strategic investment into Specialist resources.
The selected coaches are currently employed as SLC Specialist Consultant Coaches and are assigned to various National teams.