Mickey Arthur set to become Sri Lanka's new head coach after Pakistan tour
Sri Lanka has also finalised a deal with Shane McDermott as their fielding coach.
Mumbai: According to the highly placed sources in SLC, South Africa-born Mickey Arthur will be in Pakistan with the Sri Lankan team as a consultant and Rumesh Ratnayake will be the head coach.
However, after the Pakistan tour, he will take over the head coach post.
Arthur has worked with the South Africa, Australia and Pakistan teams.
Arthur's experience with the Sri Lankan team in Pakistan will be more beneficial in the sense he has already worked with the Pakistan team very recently and is aware of the techniques of Pak players and wickets.
Arthur is likely to arrive in Sri Lanka this month to complete the contract procedure.
No positions for bowling and batting coach are finalized.
Fielding coach
SLC has also almost finalised a deal with the Australian, Shane McDermott, as the fielding coach.
The Tasmania-based Shane McDermott is likely to be the new fielding coach, it is also learnt here.
The 38-year-old McDermott was a left-handed batsman and a fielding coach. Like Arthur, he has also not played any international cricket.
His name was recommended by CA (Cricket Australia) and not by the new Head Coach Mickey Arthur, a few may believe so.
"We enquired with CA to suggest a few names and that's how he (Shane McDermott) has come on board", a source in SLC confirmed to this reporter on Friday morning.
Interestingly, Arthur's name (for Head Coach) was already doing rounds for quite some time. He (Arthur) showed interest and there are very few coaches available in the market due to several Leagues are bring played all around the world and many coaches prefer to work for the League franchises on a part-time basis and earn money and therefore our task was little difficult", the source further added.
The SLC president (Shammi Silva) and the CEO (Ashely De Silva) negotiated the contract terms with Arthur, it is learnt here.