Cricket: Exclusive: Jehan Mubarak for U-19; Avishka Gunawardene to ‘A’ team

Ending weeks of dilly-dally and suspense, former Sri Lanka cricketer Jehan Mubarak has been appointed to the U-19 team and his fellow cricketer, Avishka Gunawardena, for the 'A' team, Sri Lanka Cricket CEO Ashley de Silva confirmed to the Sunday Times exclusively today (23). 

As the Sunday Times reported earlier, an all-local set-up team was being head-hunted for the various men’s teams since the start of the year.

Two of those three teams, excluding the national team, are now fixed and finalised. De Silva reasoned out that the top job is yet to be sealed as negotiations were still on.

The CEO said these decisions were made a fortnight ago itself and was waiting to release it officially as some revamp work is still underway at the High Performance Centre.

With the ‘A’ team appointment, Gunawardena, has now been promoted from the youth team, which has now been taken over by Mubarak.

This is the first time the player-turned-coach Mubarak has entered the country’s coaching unit after having played the same role for Royal College.