In an interesting move, the Sri Lanka Cricket Board (SLC) has removed A team coach Avishka Gunawardana from his post, Cricket Age reliably learns.
The decision was taken at management committee meeting yesterday. Now, Avishka has been named emerging team coach for the South Africa tour, while Toy Dias or Thilan Samaraweera, one of the least successful coach in the history of the game, Will take over as new A team coach for the Indian tour in June.
In last three years, Avishka has become the most successful A team coach in Sri Lanka cricket history. During his tenure, A team has not lost a single series. On overseas tours as well, the Sri Lanka A team emerged victorious under Avishka’s supervision. Moreover, in 2017, Sri Lanka A team had created a history by becoming the first ever Sri Lanka side to win a test series in West Indies.
More than his unmatched success ratio with A team, Avishka has contributed big time to Sri Lanka cricket by producing more than dozens of players for the national team. When million dollars national team coach Chandika Hathurasingha could not unearth a single future player in two years, Avishka has produced players like Kusal Mendis, Dananjaya De Silva, Roshan Silva, Asitha Fernando, Dasun Shanaka.
On the other hand, Thilan Samaraweera has turned out least successful coach at every level. In December 2018, Samaraweera was removed as the batting coach of the Sri Lanka midway through the New Zealand tour. Back then, the Sri Lanka Cricket Board (SLC) had appointed Jon Lewis as his successor and put Samaraweera at board’s high performance center at Khetterama.
At international level as well, Samaraweera has turned out an epic disaster as a Coach. In 2017, Samaraweera had been removed as a batting consultant of Bangladesh even after being offered an extension. Later, just to make Sri Lanka’s head coach Chandika Hathurasingha happy, SLC hired him as batting coach, but he failed miserably there as well.
Even after all these failures, he is still getting big deals in Sri Lanka cricket and drawing millions as salary, only because he is a close associate of Chandika Hathurusingha. There is a belief in Sri Lanka cricket that Samaraweera plays the ‘messenger’ role for Hathurusingha.
According to sources, Since his removal, with the blessings of Hathurusingha, Samaraweera was just going at Khettarama, sitting here and there entire day and was drawing his salary of 2.5 million.
