By Dhammika Ratnaweera
As the newly appointed Sri Lankan captain Lasith Malinga, who is expected to lead the national cricket team upto the World Cup in England, said that the time to rebuild the team is over, the chairman of national selectors Asantha de Mel said that he could not agree more with country’s cricket captain.
“Now we are focusing on the forthcoming ODI World Cup in England, but we still find difficulties to select correct players with potentials to respective roles in the playing XI and the squad. The absence of a powerful second string had been a major issue” said the chairman of selectors.
Asantha De Mel, a former national paceman and a few times member of selection committee and its chief, now being vested again with powers in cricket selections to an ailing Sri Lankan cricket team nearly a month ago, recalled experienced paceman Lasith Malinga, who had been sidelined due to injuries and lack of form to lead the team until the world cup in England.
De Mel said it was very unfortunate to see that Sri Lankan fast bowlers could not make use of the opportunity to bowl well on fast tracks in England. “The kiwis cracked a few bouncers while none of our bowlers were able to use those bouncy wickets to prepare for England” said de Mel adding that it was a pity to note that unlike in the past, the new bunch of fast bowlers lack fitness and are unable to bowl long spells.
According to the chairman of the cricket selection committee, except for a very few batsmen in the calibre of Angelow Mathews, Dinesh Chandimal, Dimuth Karunarathna and young hopeful Kusal Mendis fared well in New Zealand, while most of the others failed to come good. “Unfortunately, our consistent run-scorer Mathews is sustaining injury and we have look for replacements, Danushka Gunatillake failed in tests and now we have to replace him too. This is a continuous process, when the players fail to make use of the opportunity” explained De Mel.
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