An emotional Sri Lanka Cricket captain Angelo Mathews stated that losing to Zimbabwe in an ODI series at home is one the lowest points of his career.
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Sri Lanka was stunned by the 11th ranked Zimbabwe as the African nation bagged their maiden ODI series in Sri Lanka on Monday after they won the fifth and final game by 3 wickets in Sooriyawewa, Hambanthota. The last time Zimbabwe won a bilateral ODI series away from home, was when they beat Kenya 5-0 in 2009.
“It’s one of the lowest points in my career. A hard pill to swallow. Everything went against us. From the toss to misreading the wicket. No excuses, because at the end of the day we were not good enough to beat them. They played better cricket.” Mathews said.
With the recent losses, questions began circulating on Mathews’ position as Sri Lanka’s captain and if he would step down. The 30-year old answered them swiftly after the loss, saying, “I still haven’t thought about anything, there’s still more time. I will give it a bit more thought, chat with the selectors. I haven’t decided yet.“
Sri Lanka suffer worst ever ODI series defeat
Sri Lanka suffered their worst ever ODI series defeat when Zimbabwe completed a 3-2 victory..
Sri Lanka’s biggest problem has been ‘inconsistency’. They beat Australia in Tests, lost the ODI and T20I series’ against the same opposition, then drew the full tour against Bangladesh at home. Beat India in the ICC Champions Trophy, nearly beat eventual winners Pakistan and have now lost the ODI series at home to Zimbabwe. All this has meant that Sri Lanka is languishing at the bottom of the ICC rankings in all three formats (7th in Tests, 8th in ODIs and 8th in T20Is)
“We have been inconsistent. We come back with strong performances and then we lose it completely and then we come back with stronger performances. Rankings are behind our mind, but we need to play well. We have not been consistent.” Mathews stated.
On a pitch which had plenty of spin, Sri Lanka fielded three seamers with Nuwan Kulasekara ending up bowling only 3 overs. A question that was raised was if Lakshan Sandakan had played and accompanied Akila Danajaya, would Sri Lanka have had a sniff at defending the score, “If we wanted to play the other spinner (Sandakan), I think that would have been the same story because even in the last game it turned, but our spinners were not successful. Today I thought Akila Dananjaya bowled well and did a good job. Misreading the wicket was big and the toss was crucial.” Mathews said.
Sri Lanka Cricket is seemingly heading nowhere as they have fallen behind big time, being unable to beat a side which lost to Scotland and Netherland before coming to the island nation, a result no one foresaw. Now, Sri Lanka is without an ODI series win in three consecutive series. They lost 1-4 to Australia last year and drew 1-1 with Bangladesh in March this year before this 2-3 defeat to Zimbabwe.
“We have a lot of improvements to make. The Indian series will be even tougher. In a small period, we should fix our problems. As a team, we did during training but nothing is working in the middle” Mathews concluded.
