In the acknowledgement of Cricket Age exposes, the Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) will be conducting a disciplinary inquiry against Batting Coach Grant Flower over his alleged breaching of the bio-bubble during the England tour.
Flower refused the Chinese and Russian made vaccines because he claimed he could not travel to his country unless he was vaccinated with a recommend vaccine such as Pfizer. Later, he underwent a PCR test on his return from the England tour and was diagnosed as positive. It forced SLC to reschedule six-match limited-overs series against India, with the first ODI now starting on July 17 instead of July 13.
”If everything would have gone well (without Grant being positive) squad was allowed to practice from 10th July, to allows them 3 days practice, which is more than adequate and coach endorsed it” a top SLC official told Cricket Age.
On July 6, Cricket Age had published that when Sri Lanka were losing match after match in UK, Flower was fighting with team manager to bring his live in partner with him! According to team insiders, Flower has been accused of breaching the bio bubble to meet his partner. More shockingly, Sri Lanka’s so called cricket director Tom Moody also blindly supported Flower’s demand.
“He (Flower) wanted to bring his partner into the room, saying she lives in Britain and followed Covid regulations. Even the England Cricket Board (ECB) had approved his request, but SLC turned down it saying it could be risky.” a team management Insider had told Cricket Age.
“The board and technical advisory committee has already decided to remove Flower. As his contract expires in December, he will be replaced by a local coach” the top SLC official added.
Recently when Cricket Age inquired, it learned that Flower draws a whopping 8,000 US$ salary per month, for teaching this horrific batting display to Sri Lanka players!
“As a batting coach, not only he has turned a joke, under his watch Sri Lanka batsmen have also embarrassed country’s batting legacy. He is an utter failure” a Sri Lanka Cricket expert had told Cricket Age.
Over the decades, Sri Lanka Cricket hires overseas white elephants like Flower for reasons best known to Maitland Place’s decision makers! In World Cricket, after India, Sri Lanka has produced the most number of batting greats in recent history! However, their own cricket board picks mediocre foreigner coaches, to oblige them with paid holidays with usually two year contracts!
“Their is no dearth of young batting talents in Sri Lanka team. Players like Avishka Fernando, Pathum Nisshanka, Ashen Bandara, Charith Asalanka have the potential to become next generation batting greats! However, an uninspiring Flower has failed miserably in his role to motivate Sri Lanka as a batting unit.
“He is still surviving, only because of a gang of foreigners in Sri Lanka cricket who are applying ‘you scratch my back, I will scratch yours, you protect my job, I will protect yours’ policy” an insider at SLC had told Cricket Age.
