Former Sri Lanka batter Chamara Silva has been appointed as the head coach of the Sri Lanka Under-19 men's team. His appointment runs from March 2025 to December 2026. This period includes the Under-19 Men's World Cup to be held in Zimbabwe and Namibia next year.
Silva brings plenty of coaching experience from Sri Lanka's domestic circuit. He is an ICC Level III qualified coach, and has served as head coach of the Police Sports Club. Before that, he has also coached the Bloomfield Cricket Club and Panadura Sports Club.
Silva played 11 Tests, 75 ODIs and 16 T20Is for Sri Lanka in a 12-year period from 1999-2011. His last game for Sri Lanka was a T20I against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi in November 2011. Two days before that, Silva played what turned out to be his final ODI.
He was part of the side that finished runners-up in back-to-back ODI World Cups in 2007 and 2011. While he managed only 77 runs in four innings in 2011, he had got four half-centuries in 2007, including three in a row to start the tournament. Silva last played a Test in 2008, having got scores of 61 and 152* in his debut series, which was on the tour of New Zealand in 2006-07.
He was also part of the World T20 in 2007 and 2009, with Sri Lanka losing the final of the latter tournament to Pakistan.
In 2017, he was banned from cricket for two years by SLC for his supposed role in a Tier B first-class match that featured unusual scoring rates. Silva's last domestic game came as recently as last month, when he represented Police Sports Club against Ace Capital Cricket Club in a Major League Tournament fixture in Colombo.