Sri Lanka Cricket has appointed former captain Hashan Tillakaratne as batting coach of its senior men’s programme, the board announced on Friday.
Tillakaratne will be based at Sri Lanka Cricket’s National High Performance Centre and will work with national players as part of the senior men’s programme, SLC said in its statement. The appointment took effect on August 20 and runs until December 31, 2027.
A returning figure
Tillakaratne has held national coaching roles before. SLC said he previously served as batting coach of the Sri Lanka men’s national team and as head coach of the Sri Lanka women’s national team, and has also been head coach of the Bangladesh women’s national team.
As a player he represented Sri Lanka from 1989 to 2003, appearing in 83 Test matches and 200 one-day internationals and accumulating more than 8,200 international runs across the two formats, according to the board. He was a member of the side that won the 1996 men’s ODI World Cup and captained Sri Lanka in 11 Tests.
The left-hander, now 59, later worked as a national selector and with senior, Under-19 and women’s setups, and recently completed a coaching stint in the United States, IANS reported.
Timing
The appointment was announced two days before Sri Lanka meet India in the second and final Test of the current series at the Sinhalese Sports Club ground in Colombo, starting Sunday.
Sri Lanka go into that match without three first-choice batters, with Kusal Mendis and Dinesh Chandimal ruled out and Pathum Nissanka considered unlikely to feature.
The SSC is also the ground where Tillakaratne played what is widely regarded as his finest Test innings — an unbeaten 136 against India in the third Test of the 2001 series.
SLC described the role as part of its High Performance Centre structure rather than a matchday appointment to the touring Test side, and did not say whether Tillakaratne would work with the squad during the Colombo Test.
