Coach Pubudu Dassanayake Eager To Move On After Resignation

By Ravi Madholall in Toronto
Former USA head coach Pubudu Dassanayake stated that he is willing and eager to move on after his sudden resignation recently as coach of USA cricket team.

Apart from his enjoyment as the coach during his three-year span ranging from 2016-2019, Dassanayake said he was little surprised how things have unfolded in the last few months and the lack of communication from the USA cricket administration.

Kiran More, a former Indian wicketkeeper/batsman, has taken up the responsibility as the USA’s Cricket Director alongside several other former reputable cricketers to be his assistant in a variety of roles.

“I was a bit surprised,” Dassanayake said. “It’s hard for me to comment about them at the moment because I was outside the decision-making process in the last few weeks in the male’s team. So I don’t know how they did it. But the vision that I have and the vision that they have is two totally different roads. They can be successful. I’m not saying their visions are bad. They are good visions. “But for me, Associate cricket is different from the Full Member setup and I would like to work in an environment where trust has to be there. We have lost a bit of that part basically.” Dassanayake, who featured in 11 tests for his native country Sri Lanka related.

During his time as the leading coach, Dassanayake revealed that USA’s cricket will be strong going forward with the huge amount of talented players around.

He was in the aforementioned capacity when the team kept elevating from Division 2 to now earning International Cricket Council one-day status, something that has been very distinguished for the game in North America.

“I think USA have great talents and they will continue to do well as time goes on; yes, way back things that been going good and the players have shown good intention to be match-winners and reaching to that level is no surprise,” Dassanayake, who represented Canada at the international level too, mentioned.

Quizzed on what is next for the 49-year-old wicketkeeper having still resided in Barrie, Ontario, Canada, Dassanayake responded: “I will just take a break for a few weeks and see how things go; I just wanted a break and certainly I will get back into the game as a coach,” informed Dassanayake, who coached Nepal from 2007 to 2011 before coached Canada from 2011-2016 then taking up the position in USA, expressed.

Atul Rai, a USA Cricket board member and head of the cricket committee for USA Cricket told Dassanayke that he would have to report to More and the new member Kieran Powell recently which was quite shocking to him and may have contributed to his resignation.

Before that, Dassanayake had mainly worked with Eric Parthen, who is USA project manager and officer Wade Edwards on all operational decisions while selection was done with a selection panel chaired by ex-West Indies batsman Ricardo Powell.

“Things were a bit too fast when Rai informed me; I know things could have changed but not so quickly but once the team gained both one-day and T20 status, we started to see people coming from all round,” Dassanayke, who played for Sri Lanka in 1993 and 1994, declared.

Meanwhile, Paraag Marathe, Chairman of USA Cricket, said, “I want to thank Pubudu for the work that he’s done over the past few years to help the team reach thus far. He is an extremely accomplished coach and a person of great integrity and strong values and his contribution to USA Cricket is valued by us all. He leaves USA Cricket at this time with our best wishes for the future,” said Marathe.

“Pubudu deserves huge credit for both the drastic improvement in team performance and the creation of a new playing squad culture and work ethic,” said USA Cricket Project Manager Eric Parthen. “I can’t thank him enough for everything he has given USA Cricket over the past few years and we all look forward to watching the team building further on the strong platform that he put together.”