Mahela Jayawardene Denies BCCI’s Offer To Coach Team India After T20 World Cup 2021

Team India’s current head coach Ravi Shastri is looking to part ways with coaching responsibility at the end of his tenure after the conclusion of the T20 World Cup 2021. 

As Shastri has no plans of extending his tenure, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has already started looking for his replacement. The cricket body initially looked for Rahul Dravid for the job but the former India captain has no plans of serving the responsibility as he wants to stick to his coaching job the coach at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bangalore. 

However, according to the reports of the Indian Express, the BCCI is looking to bring back Anil Kumble for the head coach role after the T20 World Cup. However, before Kumble, the Indian board also contacted former Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene but he declined their offer as he currently wants to coach the Sri Lankan national cricket team instead. 

Also, as Mahela is already the head coach of the Mumbai Indians (MI) in the IPL, he won’t be able to coach the national side. 

According to the BCCI’s rulebook “a person cannot hold another position when he is the head coach of the Indian Cricket Team.”

Jayawardene is in high demand in the franchise leagues. He recently won the inaugural edition of The Hundred with Southern Brave in England. With the remainder of IPL 2021 resuming from Sunday, he will look forward to his coaching duties with Mumbai Indians.

“Having done 18 years of international cricket as a player I don’t want to live out of a suitcase for 12 months of the year. This is a good challenge for me and its early days. I don’t do too many tournaments so that I have my personal time to spend back home with the family. I’m happy to help out as a consultant here and there (with Sri Lanka) but not on a full-time basis because I would not enjoy that personally,” he was quoted as saying to Sky Sports.