Greg Chappell not averse to have an initial discussion

Eleven cricket coaches have applied for the post of head coach of Sri Lanka’s national team amidst an overture from former Australian cricketing great Greg Chappell appearing on the horizon.

The position fell vacant with the resignation of head coach Graham Ford.

Early last week the Sri Lanka Cricket met at a special executive committee meeting to scrutinise the eleven names that were in contention – three Sri Lankans and eight foreigners.

From Sri Lanka, applications were received from the present batting coach Marvan Atapattu, ‘A’ team coach Romesh Kaluwitharana and fielding coach Ruwan Kalpage.

There were three applications from India. Among them is former Indian fast bowler Venkatesh Prasad. He is the bowling coach for Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League. The second is Lalchand Rajput, a former Indian cricketer who played in two Tests and four ODIs from 1985 to 1987. Rajput was once assigned the task as a manager of Indian cricket team for a brief period. The third is Mohit Soni, a level ‘A’ certified coach from India.

There were two applications from Australia. One is from Shane Duff who did a short stint in the Sri Lankan coaching staff.

He recently lost his position to former Sri Lankan Test batsman Chandika Hathurusinghe who took over as new coach of the Sydney Thunder in the Big Bash League franchise. The second Australian is little known Michael O’Sullivan.

There was one application from New Zealand -- that of Grant Bradburn who played seven Tests and 11 One Day Internationals for New Zealand. At present he is in charge of the New Zealand ‘A’ team. .

The two applications were received from England. They were from Paul Fabrace and Ian Pont. Paul Fabrace earlier did a stint as deputy coach to Trevor Bayliss in Sri Lanka while Ian Pont was a former England cricketer and accomplished fast bowling coach. He also had a brief stint with baseball.

However the Lankan cricket hierarchy after scrutinising the applications has decided to do a re- launch its hunt for the head coach of the national team and sought the assistance of chief selector Sanath Jayasuriya in the matter.

However, another high-ranking executive committee member who is on an overseas tour at present had received intimation through one his Australian contacts that former Australian captain Greg Chappell is not averse to have a discussion with the Lankan management or the sub-committee in charge of the task of selecting the new coach. The SLC’s sub- committee is headed by Ranjith Fernando and comprises Mohan de Silva, Nishantha Ranatunga, Nuski Mohamed, Sanath Jayasuriya, Ashley de Silva and Jerome Jayaratne.

If the talks are fruitful with Chappell it would be a boon given the fact that the former Australian captain knows the Australian conditions well. He has also almost a year to prepare the Lankan cricketers for the next Cricket World Cup which will take place in Australia and New Zealand. However the only grey area in this matter is Chappell’s rocky short stint with the BCCI where the Australian stalwart left halfway through his contract after building up some differences with the Indian cricket machine.