Dyson to prepare team for New Zealand tour

John Dyson will be back on March 1 to continue his role as the coach of the Sri Lankan team before their Test tour to New Zealand in April. Mohan de Silva, the president of Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC), said that Dyson had agreed to return to Sri Lanka and complete his contract which ends on March 31 and prepare the team for the two Tests against New Zealand.

Dyson angered a section of the SLC top brass when he back to Sydney straight after the cancellation of the New Zealand tour, following the tsunami disaster, without informing them. The SLC's ExCo was divided on whether they should retain Dyson and give him a fresh contract or look for someone else to replace him.

However the issue appears to have thinned out following Dyson's talks with de Silva and Duleep Mendis in Australia recently. de Silva said that SLC have offered new terms in the contract which Dyson hopes to discuss with SLC officials when he is here. Depending on the outcome of the discussions Dyson's contract could be extended to anything from one year to until the 2007 World Cup in West Indies.

Dyson, the former Australian opener, had succeeded Dav Whatmore after signing a 19-month contract in September 1, 2003. Within that period of time Sri Lanka improved their rankings in both forms of the game, moving from seventh to fifth in Tests and leaped from seventh to second place in the one-dayers.

Sri Lanka are due to play New Zealand in two Tests at Napier and Wellington, apart from a three-day warm-up game from March 26. The national cricket selectors named a pool of 24 players for training from which the final squad will be selected. These players will be involved in SLC's provincial tournament which gets underway tomorrow and ends with the final at Dambulla on March 6.