Sri Lankan paceman Lasith Malinga says that he will assess his future after the current series against India. Malinga, who turned 34 on Monday, captained Sri Lanka in the absence of suspended captain Upul Tharanga in the fourth One-Day International on Thursday (August 31) at the R. Premadasa Stadium in Colombo and went onto complete 300 one-day wickets when he dismissed Indian captain Virat Kohli.
Despite becoming only the fourth Sri Lankan to complete 300 ODI wickets, Malinga couldn’t prevent Sri Lanka from suffering a massive 168-run defeat with India leading the five-match series 4-0 with one game to go.
A knee injury kept Malinga out of ODI cricket for 19 months and since his return in June, he has struggled, taking only nine wickets in 12 games. In four games this series, he has only taken two wickets.
“I’m playing after 19 months following a leg injury,” said Malinga. “In the Zimbabwe and India series I couldn’t play well. I’ll see where I’m at after this series, and evaluate how long I can play given the way my body is.
“No matter how experienced I am, if I can’t win a match for the team and do what the team needs, there’s no point in me being here. I’ll see if I can make up for that 19 months and regain that form over the next three or four months. I’ll see the number of games that I get. If not I’ll have to consider the state of my body, and what is expected of me. If I can’t deliver that, then I’ll happily retire,” he added.
Malinga put down Sri Lanka’s recent struggles to lack of experience.
“When you look at other teams, you can think about how many of their players have played a lot of matches. If you take our 11 cricketers, how many ODIs have they played? I think we are lacking experience. Except for Angelo Mathews, Lahiru Thirimanne and myself, others have played very little. That’s why when a difficult situation comes and we’re playing against a good team, we find it hard to come out of that. Now we need to give these guys a place and experience until 2019. We need to be patient,” he said.
The 168-run defeat was Sri Lanka’s heaviest loss at home.
“In our earlier teams, you had players who had played a 100 ODIs, or at least 50 ODIs. We need that. Every other team in the world has that experience in their side. We need to get there. We need to give the young players some more matches and get them to the place we need them to be. That’s what’s important.”
