Paul Farbrace likely to be Sri Lanka's next coach

Colombo, Dec 7: Sri Lanka Cricket is set to hold talks with Englishman Paul Farbrace with a view to appointing him as incumbent head coach Graham Ford's successor. Ford is to leave the Sri Lanka job in January to be with the English county Surrey. SLC executive committee has decided that the governing body should have a discussion with Paul Farbrace, as he had shown an interest to take over the job, the Board said in a statement. Farbrace, 46, a former Kent and Middlesex player served as Sri Lanka's assistant coach to Trevor Bayliss between July 2007 and August 2009. More famously, he was part of the Sri Lanka set up when the team bus came under a terrorist attack in the Pakistani city of Lahore in March 2009. Sri Lanka for months had been looking for a successor to Ford. The names doing the rounds include Greg Chappell, Steve Rixon, Peter Moores, Venkatesh Prasad, Marvan Atapattu, Romesh Kaluwitharana and Ruwan Kalpage
- PTI

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Sri Lankan fast bowler Sylvester Dias dies aged 76

Sylvester Dias, a fast bowler who played first class cricket in Sri Lanka in the 1960s, has died aged 76 following a brief illness.

Dias had to compete for a place in the Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) team alongside bowlers of the calibre of Darrell Lieversz, Norton Fredrick and Ian Pieris. Although branded a matting pitch bowler and finishing with just five first-class games to his name, Dias made a fine impression on first-class debut for Sri Lanka Board President's XI against Imtiaz Ahmed's Pakistan team in 1964 at the P Sara Oval. Dias, Fredrick and Pieris formed a formidable fast-bowling combination to rout the strong Pakistan batting line up for totals of 157 and 112. Following his success against Pakistan, Dias was selected to tour India with the Ceylon side led by Michael Tissera in 1964-65, but couldn't break into the XI.