Pak coaching offer to Ranatunga

COLOMBO, April 24: Sri Lankan cricket captain Arjuna Ranatunga has been approached by the Pakistan Cricket Board PCB to coach its team, a ...

COLOMBO, April 24: Sri Lankan cricket captain Arjuna Ranatunga has been approached by the Pakistan Cricket Board PCB to coach its team, a newspaper report quoting Ranatunga said today.

The report filed from Cape Town in South Africa where the Sri Lankan team has been beaten in the Test and the tri-nation One-Day series involving South Africa and Pakistan, said the offer of coaching the Pakistan team was made by PCB chief Majid Khan.

The state-run Daily News said the doughty captain who earned the nick name quot;Captain Coolquot; for handling pressure during the last World Cup would decide on his new assignment after the next World Cup.

quot;The game has brought me great honour and tremendous satisfaction. It is my duty to give back to the game what I got out of it,quot; Ranatunga was quoted as saying adding, quot;I appreciate and thank Majid Khan for making me the offer to coach Pakistan.quot;

He said, quot;Khan is confident that I am the man to put Pakistan8217;s individual brilliance together. I will take the decisiononce I decide to quit,quot;Ranatunga said.

Ranatunga has been Sri Lanka8217;s most successful captain as under his captaincy the emerald islanders won the first Test series abroad by beating New Zealand in New Zealand and led his team to win the last World Cup.

Meanwhile, Ranatunga and his team-mates received lukewarm reception at Colombo airport when they returned from a disappointing tour of South Africa. Sri Lanka not only lost the Test series against South Africa mainly due to poor form of its top two batsmen, Sanath Jayasuriya and Aravinda de Silva but later failed to qualify to the finals of the tri-nation One-Day tournament.

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On arrival yesterday, both Ranatunga and coach Duleep Mendis refuted allegations of misconduct by some of the players leading to the poor performance of the team.

Ranatunga told reporters at the airport: quot;The sort of things which has been published never happened. We are quite used to these type of things being said about in our newspapers.quot;

A local newspaper Islandreported recently that some of the Sri Lankan cricketers were seen with women in their rooms late in nights which had led to the team8217;s poor performance.