Dismissing all the rumors (and attempts also) over Naveed Nawaz’s taking over as head coach of the Island’s senior team, the Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) has made it loud and clear that the former left hander has been considered only for the assistant coach position.
Naveed is currently the Bangladesh’s U-19 coach and his team won the global title in 2020. In the recently concluded U19 World Cup though, Bangladesh were knocked out in the quarter final itself with a defeat against mighty India. The Executive Committee (ExCo) of the board has approved Naveed for the Assistant coach role and negotiations are currently underway.
“If he joins the coaching staff, he will be acting as Assistant Coach. In case we won’t be able to appoint a head coach soon, he will be the acting head coach. If everything goes well, we hopes that he will join the team by April” a top SLC official told Cricket Age.
Interestingly, SLC’s stance on Naveed is exact opposite of what former legend Aravinda de Silva thinks! As chairman of the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC), Aravinda is pushing Naveed for the top post. The reason was given that Naveed had associated with Aravinda’s cricket academy in UAE in past.
In 2015, Aravinda’s decision to appoint Simon Willis as high-performance manager turned disaster! His role was to oversee Sri Lanka’s cricket academy besides also playing an important role in identifying and developing young talent. But, he could not produce desire results in any of the department!
