By Dhammika Ratnaweera
After a dismal tour to the United Arab Emirates for Asia Cup, Sri Lanka Cricket called an emergency press briefing to announce some of the decisions made in their ever continuing overhaul process to make the right combination for the future of nation’s cricket.
“We have a very good side but I am not satisfied with our team performance during the recent past and culminating into the two matches at the Asia cup. We lost badly against Bangladesh and then to Afghanistan” said Sri Lanka cricket coach Chandika Hathurusinghe. “Even If I was to go back and make the decisions I made into these games, I would do the same as it was not our decisions that affected the outcome” explained Sri Lanka coach. However, Kusal Mendis who had proven to be an utter failure as an opener has been dropped from the ODI squad.
He also said that both Bangladesh and Afganistan have been playing better cricket than Sri Lanka in the recent past. “There are no excuses of the form of cricket the other nations are playing at the moment, it is that Sri Lankan players are not playing to up to their potentials, they make errors and mistakes continuously. There are no excuses for their under-performance. I am not here to blame them only I too will take the responsibility for their poor run and the decisions will be taken accordingly” said Hathurusinghe, who hinted that many more changes would come in the future.
Coach Hathurusinghe, who himself recalled Angelo Mathews to take up the captaincy of Sri Lanka cricket team in January after the latter relinquished his duties in mid-2017 following team’s poor show, was instrumental in asking Mathews to hand over the captaincy to another and susenquently dropped him from the ODI squad saying that he was not fit enough to play in the ODIs as Mathews was involved in 64 run-outs in the recent past.
“There are no other personal issues involved in his omission, Mathews was asked to take captaincy early in the year, because he is the best Sri Lanka had got at the moment, but unfortunately he has failed to prove himself with his physical fitness to be in the ODI side.” explained Hathurusignhe adding further that it was not only Mathews who had got to improve their performance and commitment but everyone else in the team too.
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