Having led Southern Brave to a title win in the inaugural season of The Hundred, their chief coach and former Sri Lanka skipper Mahela Jayawardene were asked whether he would consider coaching national teams, now that he has three IPL titles with Mumbai Indians as a coach and one with Brave.
Responding to it, the Sri Lankan categorically denied any such plans as of now because he wants to spend time with his family and doesn’t want to live out of a suitcase or on the road all the time.
"Having done 18 years of international cricket as a player I don't want to live out of a suitcase for 12 months of the year,” said the man with more than 25,000 international runs in his kitty.
Jayawardene however confirmed that his current structure of helping franchise teams as consultants would remain in place. "I'm happy to help out as a consultant here and there (with Sri Lanka) but not on a full-time basis because I would not enjoy that personally,” he said. "This is a good challenge for me and it's early days. I don't do too many tournaments so that I have my personal time to spend back home with the family,” he further added.
Having spent a lot of time with Southern brave, Jayawardene feels that Tymal deserves a place in the England squad for the T20 World Cup for the hard work he has done and the kind of talent he possesses. Mills was instrumental in Brave's Eliminator win against Trent rickets and Final victory against Birmingham Phoenix.
"I'd be disappointed if he's not on that plane for the World Cup. Throughout the competition, he's been fantastic. Tymal Mills is always going to be an asset. In the shorter format of the game, he knows his skills and it's a hard skill that he's executing,” said Jayawardene about the man who did not consider a single boundary in the knockout stage of the tournament and picked four wickets as well in two matches.
With the remainder of the IPL to be played in September-October, the 44-year-old Sri Lankan would have his task cut out as he would be preparing to lead Mumbai Indians to title hattrick with the team having won the titles in 2019 and 2020 under his guidance.