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COACHING TEAM IS READY TO GO

Hot on the heels of the announcement of this year's national team squad, the Iceland Cricket Association has put forward the squad's official coaching team. Keenan Botha, the Coach, reflected on what he called "an awesome opportunity to coach the national team". A veteran of 36 appearances for Iceland, he scored 679 runs for the national team at an average of 25.15 including three half-centuries, and played four international games in 2019. A back injury curtailed his playing career at the end of last year, whereupon he was named coach at Hafnarfjörður. The Hammers, who finished last in all the main competitions in 2020, made a superb start to this season under his tutelage. "We have a good national squad with a lot of talent," he said. "I'm personally looking forward to the challenge of making this group of guys into genuinely good cricketers."


Botha will be supported by Bala Kamallakharan as Assistant Coach (Batting) and Sampath Nagarajan as Assistant Coach (Bowling). They each will join him in monitoring and developing a group of players under their specific guidance. Kamallakharan last played for Iceland in 2014 and says he is "delighted to be joining the coaching staff and looking forward to building a winning team culture." Nagarajan played one match for Iceland in 2019 and says he is "excited to work with the talent in the team".


Two new roles have been added to the coaching unit in a move to modernise and improve the setup. Perhaps most importantly, given the part-time and amateur nature of Icelandic cricket, Mike Viney has been brought in as Assistant Coach (Fitness). Asked for his first public words in this new capacity, Viney (who is not old) excitedly said "This is not my kind of thing. Put anything for me, just don't say I am old." The other member of the coaching staff is Kit Harris, who played a solitary international match in 2019, and will be working with the team as an analyst.


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