Mahela Jayawardene inexperienced for national team coach's position says Sri Lanka Cricket president

Colombo: Mahela Jayawardene is still short of experience to take over as head coach of Sri Lanka national team after the exit of Graham Ford, Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) president Thilanga Sumathipala said. [caption id=“attachment_3460480” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Mahela Jayawardene has done a good job as Head coach of Mumbai Indians. AFP[/caption] “Mahela is still short of experience as a senior coach, he may be good as a T20 batting or a fielding coach,” Sumathipala told the local Neth FM radio. He said the Mumbai Indians’ coach and former Sri Lankan captain also has some of his playing day contemporaries in the current national side. Jayawardene, who retired in 2014 after a glittering international career, is regarded as one of the best cricketing brains. Jayawardene and close friend Kumar Sangakkara’s retirements at the same time hurt Sri Lanka badly. The Lankan side have lost consistently since the two seniors retired. The team has plummeted in all ICC rankings since then. Graham Ford, who was the coach only for one year, decided to quit this week reportedly due to differences of opinion with Sumathipala’s management. Sri Lanka has had nine interim and permanent coaches since 2011. SLC sources said they were mulling approaching Chandika Hathurusinghe, the current Bangladesh cricket team coach to take over. But his contract with Bangladesh will only end in 2019. Former New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming, his team mate Scott Styris and Tom Moody, who was previously the head coach, are the names being floated around as likely successor to Ford.