Speaking exclusively to this scribe, he said, "Atapattu has shown interest to be associated with the team and therefore we are considering him to be the batting coach of our national team. We have Champaka Ramanayaka as bowling coach and Ruwan Kalpage as fielding coach and we were looking for a good batting coach and Marwan may be the "ideal choice" for the post.
The former Sri Lanka captain, Atapattu, towards the end of his career joined the Indian Cricket League (ICL) and captained the Delhi Giants. He also has experience of coaching the Singapore national team.
Atapattu was one of the most technically correct batsmen that Sri Lanka had ever produced. Making his Test debut in November 1990 just after his 20th birthday, his first six innings yielded five ducks and a 1, but supporters insisted that his debut-innings duck put him in good company with batsmen such as Michael Atherton, Graham Gooch, Len Hutton, Saeed Anwar and Wasim Akram, who all made debut-innings ducks but went on to score at least 2500 Test runs.
He was controversially left out of the squad for the 2007 Cricket World Cup, and as a result, asked for his removal from the list of Sri Lanka contracted players. Interestingly, Atapattu was to miss the 2007-08 tour of Australia, but was added to the squad after the intervention of the then Sri Lankan Sports Minister Gamini Lokuge. Atapattu played solidly in the first Test, but subsequently angrily labelled the selectors: "A set of Muppets, basically, headed by a joker," at a post-stumps press conference.
He is one of the few international batsmen who has scored centuries against all Test-playing nations.
Married to Neluni, and a father of two daughters, Atapattu, an accountant by profession was a good fielder too.
Source : Daily Mirror
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