Bipin Dani
Sri Lanka’s Test captain Dimuth Karunratne and the senior coaching staffs, which included head coach Mickey Arthur and Grant Flower (bating coach) and Jerome Jayaratne (head, HPC) have provisionally selected the 23-member training squad to prepare for the series against Bangladesh, it is learnt here.
According to the highly placed sources in the SLC, the training will begin on September 10. The final squad for the Test series beginning next month will be announced few weeks later.
The names of the training squad, which has at last 3-4 new players will be released only after the official list of the selection committee is announced. The term of the present 3-member selection committee (Ashantha de Mel, Chaminda Mendis and Vinothen John) ended on August 5 and the approval of the additions / alternations in the panel is awaited from the sports ministry.
The team management also discussed the players for the other two formats and these players will begin their training (the date not decided yet) at the High Performance Center (HPC).
Interestingly, Lasith Malinga was not involved in the selection of the probable players for the shortest formats. It seems Malinga, though has not announced his retirement from the T-20I, he is ‘no more interested” to play now.
