Chandika Hathurusingha has a habit to make other’s scapegoats for his own failures. He did this with Mushfiqur Rahim in Bangladesh and now doing the same in Sri Lanka as well.
Chandika Hathurusingha was a so called world class coach in Bangladesh. For Sri Lanka cricket, he has become a white elephant! He draws millions of rupees as monthly salary, but couldn’t achieve anything in eleven months for Sri Lanka cricket. In this period, he has pushed back Sri Lanka cricket to all time low. Instead of uplifting the standard of Sri Lanka cricket, he has more committed to uplift his loyalist, by bringing them in the national team setup. In order to fulfil his agendas, he has managed to oust all those, who were not succumb to his ego and empire!
And now, as Sri Lanka team has become a sinking ship under his coaching, Hathurusingha has found another scapegoat in order to hide his dismal show and shortcomings.
A Daily News report says that Hathurusingha has plotted the removal of team manager Charith Senanayake, that too during the ongoing test match against England.
The report says that Hathurusingha has increasingly been feeling uncomfortable with Senanayake’s presence, thus has ordered SLC CEO Ashley De Silva to remove him. When Cricket Age inquired about the latest conspiracy of Hathurusingha, some shocking facts were revealed. According to the sources close to the team management, Hathurusingha prefers only his loyalists and yes men around him. Any person, who challenges Hathurusingha dominance, is not eligible to be a part of national team setup. In addition, he has loyalists like batting coach Thilan Samaraweera and fast bowling coach Romesh Rathnayake around him. According to sources, main job of these two is to give every detail about everyone to Hathurusingha, so the so called Messiah of Sri Lanka cricket can control everything!
So, in his empire, he found Senanayake a misfit.
“Senanayake has served Sri Lanka cricket as a manager under world class coaches like Graham Ford, Trevor Bayliss and he is a no nonsense, truly professional. However these qualities of his have become the main reason for his differences with the cosch, as Hathurasingha wants only yes men around him, not the strong individuals” a team source told Cricket Age.
It has also learnt that Hathurusingha was so desperate to see Senanayake’s back, that he ordered Ashley De Silva to remove him midway through the test match. However, it couldn’t happen, as Ashley De Silva was in UK.
The most hilarious part is that Hathurusingha is blaming Senanayake for team’s poor showing, by falsely stating that team is in uncomfortable space, because of him. The hilarious part is that Hathurusingha himself has taken over all the decision making powers in his hands. He is the selector, coach, strategist for the Sri Lanka team and no one other has the permission or authority to challange him. Ironically, despite all these, Sri Lanka has embarrassingly been defeated in the ODI series by South Africa and England at home and were thrashed by minnows like Afghanistan in the Asia Cup. Now, instead of taking the responsibility for the complete failure, he is making team manager a scapegoat!
Cricket Age reliably learns that after knowing Hathurasingha’s conspiracy against him, Senanayake immediately wrote a letter to Ashley De Silva and requested the CEO for his removal for the betterment of the Sri Lanka Cricket.
In his letter, Senanayake has stated that even after fulfilling all the responsibilities, if head coach doesn’t want him in the setup, then there is no logic to stay in this toxic environment.
However, when Cricket Age inquired with SLC, it has emerged that not only against Senanayake, Hathurusingha has conspired against Sri Lanka fielding coach Manoj Abeywikrama as well.
“Not only Senanayake, Hathurusingha has demanded for Manoj removal as well with immediate effect” a top SLC official told Cricket Age.
In Manoj Abeywikrama case, Cricket Age had published a month ago that Hathurusingha wants his another loyalist Ruwan Kalpage in the national team setup at any cost. He was so much desperate to fit Ruwan in his coaching staff that he told SLC to hire him at any position : fielding coach or even as an assistant bowling coach.
It is noteworthy that as soon as Hathurusingha arrived Sri Lanka as a Messiah, he has regularly been sidelining domestic coaches and administrators. Few months ago, he unsuccessfully plotted against Sri Lanka A team coach Avishka Gunawardana, as he had wanted to bring his loyalist Thilina Kandamby. Now, he wants Senanayake and Manoj Abeywikrama ouster! If SLC succumbs to his agenda’s this time also, then it would become clear that it is the Messiah, who is running the board!
