Former Srilankan captain, cricketer and interim coach Marvan Atapattu has been announced as the Head coach of the Srilankan cricket team. He will be the first local coach in 15 years. He will be expected to bring stability to the coaching role. He will replace Englishman Paul Farbrace who quit his job in April following his appointment as deputy to Peter Moores.
Mr. Atapattu had served as interim coach of the Srilankan cricket team for three months guinding the team against England, South Africa and Pakistan. Since 2010, Srilanka has had the following coaches : Trevor Bayliss, Stuart Law, Rumesh Ratnayake, Geoff Marsh, Graham Ford and Farbrace. Selection of Atapattu as the head coach has not been short of any drama, he was selected after a 6 weeks tedius process, which made Sanath Jayasurya to step down as chairman of selection commitee. However finally it has happened. He will be looking forward to work closely with the captain, Angelo Mathews and work towards World Cup 2015.
Atapattu is a former right hand opening batsman with 5,502 runs from 90 tests which includes six double hundreds, after making his debut in 1990 against India. He has also scored 8,529 one-day runs which included 11 hundreds.
Atapattu has his first assignment against England, which begins on November 26. It will be a 7 match ODI series. Sri Lanka will then have a full tour of New Zealand, which features two Tests and seven ODIs.
