South African Mickey Arthur has been appointed as Sri Lanka’s head coach with a 2 year contract, the Sri Lanka cricket board said on Thursday. The 51 year old former first-class cricketer has had the career with the national teams of South Africa, Australia and Pakistan head coach.

Sri Lanka Cricket had appointed former fast bowler Ratnayake as temporary coach in August 2019 after a series of bad results, the head coach Hathurusingha was criticized for the teams exit from the 50-over world cup 2019.

SLC secretary Mohan told “We are very happy and pleased that we have been able to obtain the services of Mickey. He’s a well-known personality who has been the head coach of a number of countries”. Shammi, SLC President said “Hathurusingha was no longer on the payroll of the board but did not provide further details”.

Arthur’s short term T20 International contract with New Zealand was recently removed from their side. He was the head coach of Pakistan in 2016 and they were the Champions of 50-over series in 2017 and No. 1 ranking in both ODT and T20I. Pakistan team failed to reach the semi-finals in 50-over World Cup 2019. So, now Pakistan decided to end the contract with Mickey Arthur.

SLC also added “Zimbabwean Grant Flower will join his support staff as the batting coach while Australians David Saker and Shane McDermott will be the bowling coach and the fielding coach respectively”.