By Dwelleth Morountodun
In a bid to move the Nigeria Cricket Federation forward and for the team to favourably compete among the best globally,
the Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Mr Sunday Dare, today, unveiled Mr Asanka Gurusinha as the National Cricket Team Head Coach.
The event took place at the VIP Lounge of Moshood Abiola Stadium, Abuja.
The Minister, who was represented by Mrs Maria Wophil, a Deputy Director in the Federation Elites Athlete Dept. of the ministry, urged the new head coach to bring his wealth of experience into practice by moving the team from its current 39th position to be among the world best, assuring that the ministry will give necessary support to the federation where necessary.
Earlier in his remarks, the President of the Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF), Prof. Adams Ukwenya, noted that Nigeria has the potential to drive the cricket revolution in Sub-Saharan Africa.
While appreciating the Minister for his unflinching support to the federation and approval of Mr Gurusinha’s employment, he noted that the head coach has the pedigree to coach any cricketing country in the world to point of excellence, having coached his native country; Sri Lanka and also at the international level.
Ukwenya, stressed that the expertise from a career coach like Gurusinha would be useful with a low resource but an ambitious country with huge potentials like Nigeria.
He maintained that the head coach will double as high-performance Manager of Nigeria Cricket Federation in addition to developing a national framework for grassroots cricket coaching unique to Nigerian setting.
In his acceptance remarks, Gurusinha thanked the Ministry and the federation for giving him the opportunity to coach the team, promising to build on the competence of the players and NCF to a greater height.
Gurusinha’s appointment as the head coach of NCF is a renewable contract and is expected to run for the period of three years.