SLC appoints Chris Silverwood as Sri Lanka's head coach

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) have appointed Chris Silverwood as the head coach of the national team. He will replace Rumesh Ratnayake at the helm who was the interim coach. Silverwood’s contract will run for a period of two years and his first assignment will be the upcoming Test series in Bangladesh. The 47-year-old was England‘s head coach not long ago and had stepped down from the position after the team’s 0-4 thrashing in the Ashes in Australia.

Though Silverwood’s stint with the England team wasn’t a great one, he had a great time while coaching Essex as the county team won the County Championship in 2017 after a huge gap of 25 years. As far as his cricketing experience is concerned, he played 6 Tests and 7 ODIs at the international level. However, he was a legendary figure in the domestic circuit featuring in 184 FC and 202 List A matches picking 577 and 259 wickets respectively.

SLC delighted with Chris Silverwood’s appointment

SLC CEO Ashley De Silva was happy with the appointment of Chris Silverwood and reckoned that he has all the qualities to take Sri Lanka‘s cricket team forward in the near future. “We are delighted to appoint Chris as the new Head Coach of the national team. He is an extremely experienced coach and from our discussions with him in the recruitment process it is clear he has the required qualities we are looking for to take the team forward,” he said according to Cricbuzz.

Chris Silverwood too was excited to start his new stint with the team from the island nation. He further asserted that the current group of players in Sri Lanka team are very talented and he is excited to meet them soon. “I am very excited to be on board with Sri Lanka and I cannot wait to get over to Colombo and get started. They have a talented and passionate group of players and I am really looking forward to meeting up with the players and coaching staff very soon,” Silverwood said.