Sri Lanka need to trust their own

After months of unseemly delay, Marvan Atapattu was confirmed as the Sri Lanka national head coach last month. On the face of it, it is hard to see why there was such hesitation to appoint him. A successful international cricketer in his own right, Atapattu is a former Sri Lankan captain. His tenure was marked by a calm authority, redolent of his assured batting style - there was a time when he seemed to score double-hundreds for fun. Given the defection of Paul Farbrace, Atapattu's often-expressed keenness for the job is by no means insignificant, and his own coaching record is impressive. He recently led the most successful tour Sri Lanka have ever undertaken to England, with victories in the Test, ODI and T20 formats, an unprecedented across-the-board triumph. Whether the arcane and inexplicable intricacies of Sri Lankan cricket politics were at play in the reluctance to appoint him full-time coach is anyone's guess. An alternative explanation could lie in the allure of that most divisive of figures, the overseas coach.

The attraction lies in the fact that developing countries, which lack indigenous expertise, seek short cuts to progress by "purchasing" knowledge. A plethora of African countries have done this for their national football teams, to the extent that almost every African country to successfully compete at a World Cup seems to have had a Belgian, Serbian or Brazilian hired gun leading them. Nor have Sri Lankans been shy of seeking employment in this fashion, as evidenced by Pubudu Dassanayake's tenure in Nepal, or Roy Dias' appointment in Malaysia. It is a sensible and mutually beneficial arrangement.

Of course, in the category of overseas coaches are the stellar performers. Think of Fabio Capello, that great Italian, who managed England's football team. A man of unquestionable stature, he commanded respect even from England's fabulously wealthy and famously pampered footballers. In cricketing terms, Gary Kirsten is his equivalent, adroitly and successfully managing the superstars of Indian cricket. Duncan Fletcher of Zimbabwe had a successful tenure as England coach.

Not all such appointments have been as fruitful. Mickey Arthur, who enjoyed a superb spell in charge of South Africa, failed in all possible measures when in charge of Australia. There was undoubtedly resistance to the appointment of a foreign coach, but there were also clearly cultural differences between South Africans and Australians, which Arthur and the Australian team were not able to bridge.

Which brings us back to Sri Lanka Cricket's peregrinations in selecting a coach. SLC had been stung by the defection of Farbrace to the ECB, on the eve of Sri Lanka's tour to England, made all the more galling because the board had bought Farbrace out of his previous contract with Yorkshire. Without being disrespectful, Farbrace falls into the camp of the journeyman coach. Perhaps the attraction of his appointment lay in precisely the fact that caused Arthur's downfall: he was an outsider to Sri Lankan cricket, and therefore removed from its parochial power politics. During the search for his replacement, some unlikely names were mentioned: Mark Ramprakash, for instance, who has no coaching record at all; and Arthur, who would, one suspects, be beyond SLC's financial wherewithal.

The reluctance to endorse Atapattu becomes, therefore, all the more curious. When the English Rugby Football Union sought a replacement for Martin Johnson - a talismanic captain but woeful coach - Stuart Lancaster was appointed as a stand-in, in very much the same way that Atapattu was appointed for the England series. Stellar candidates applied for the permanent post, not least Nick Mallett, a world-renowned South African coach. Lancaster, a mediocre player but established coach, was so successful in his interim appointment that it became impossible to consider anyone else for the role, as Mallett himself acknowledged. Atapattu surpassed Lancaster's undoubted success during his own interim tenure, ably assisted by another former Sri Lankan cricketing hero, Chaminda Vaas.

The reasons behind SLC's foot-dragging may never surface. Perhaps Atapattu had put someone's nose out of joint. Perhaps an overseas coach, necessarily removed from local politics, was sought because that would be seen as a neutral appointment. Or was it something deeper, a belief that an overseas coach is somehow better qualified? An old family friend, when giving his father-of-the-bride speech, recounted that when he was a boy in Jaffna, they always looked overseas for the best products, Austin Morris cars, Singer sewing machines. It was therefore natural, he told us, that he should embrace an Englishman as his son-in-law.

Sri Lanka's greatest triumphs - the 1996 World Cup, The Oval in 1998, and the England tour in 2014 - were all overseen by Sri Lankan or Sri Lankan-born coaches. Sri Lanka now have over 30 years experience of cricket at the highest level. Both Sri Lankan and overseas coaches have been instrumental in that success, and the accumulation of knowledge that goes with it. Other countries have not been slow to recognise Sri Lankan expertise. The sight of Muttiah Muralitharan in Australian national colours, coaching their team, is the most delicious of ironies. Without in any way decrying the notable contributions of our overseas coaches, we should not be shy of trusting our own.