After captaining the Sri Lanka ODI team for the last few years, Angelo Mathews is once again under heavy fire and criticism after another disappointing loss at the hands of Zimbabwe on Saturday.
Mathews’ batting average as captain in ODI cricket is 45.70 which is far better than 40.83 as a player but what of his leadership skills, strategies and decision-making as the leader of the country’s most popular sport? There are massive calls from cricketing pundits and through fans on social media demanding for Mathews’ axe as the captain.
Since captaining his first ODI in 2012, Mathews has won only 47 games as captain in 97 matches and losing on 44 occasions. Mathews was confident and was looking to whitewash the 11th ranked Zimbabwe prior to the series. Now with the series levelled at 2-2, is Mathews the right person to lead Sri Lanka for the 2019 World Cup?
“We are under pressure. I am under massive pressure as captain. We batted well but bowling has been disappointing in both games we lost. Why we lost was because our bowling was weak. We are sloppy with our fielding and consistency is not there. If we can’t defend 300, there’s something wrong. I don’t know whether I will be captain till 2019. “Mathews said to the journalists when queried about his future as captain.
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Under Mathews’ reign, Sri Lanka has lost 29 games while defending a score. In the recent past, Sri Lanka’s forte has been to chasing targets. Throughout the series, teams batting second have convincingly won the match on batting-friendly surfaces yet Sri Lanka opted to bat first in an important encounter.
“We actually didn’t know that the rain will come in. It was dry and we expected the wicket to turn as the day went on. We saw in the last game also that the ball started turning after 20 overs in the second session. “Mathews said. “Bowling was once again very disappointing. How many times can you lose a game after scoring 300 runs? We had enough runs on the board, unfortunately, the rain intervened but we still had the attack to defend it.”
Zimbabwe level series in rain interrupted game
Zimbabwe managed to scrape through to a 4-wicket win (Duckworth & Lewis method)..
In the past three years, Sri Lanka has fielded over 40 players in ODI cricket and currently sits at the 8th place in ICC rankings. Injuries have been a reason as well for Sri Lanka to not have a settled unit but some of the selections over the past couple of months are baseless.
Sri Lanka were cruising on 208 for no loss in 35 overs and the hosts had set eyes on a score of above 330 but wickets at regular intervals restricted the islanders to only 300.
“Dickwella once again batted well and together with Danushka, they gave us a good platform, we could have got about 330 or 340. The wicket slowed up a bit in the last ten overs and we tried to go for shots a bit too early.” Mathews shared his views
It is not entirely captain’s fault when the team is not doing well but the everlasting ‘transformation’ period for Sri Lanka is a cause of concern. One time, Mathews had Sangakkara, Mahela and Dilshan for advice in a time of crisis but now the current lot of players in the field are only thinking about how to catch the next ball, not to misfield rather than providing ideas to their captain.
“Sri Lanka is a tough place to tour. It’s hard to win against Sri Lanka who play well at home. I would say it’s unexpected. They are a very hard team to beat at home. I assume the pressure is more on them because they expected to beat us.” Zimbabwe captain Graeme Cremer stated after the 4th ODI.
All in all, who would’ve thought they would be playing a series decider against Zmbabwe on 10th July in Sooriyawewa, Hambanthota yet the Lankans now have their backs against the wall and Mathews’ future as the captain remains on how well they finish off the current Zimbabwe tour and play India at home from July 26th.
