Over the past two years, it seems like Sri Lanka’s limited overs skipper Angelo Mathews has missed more games than he has played for Sri Lanka, so it comes as no surprise that chief selector Graeme Labrooy has indicated that Mathews will be used as a specialist batsman from here on in.
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Speaking to the Sunday Times Labrooy hinted that Mathews was facing the consequences for the heavy workload he bore from 2013 – 2016, where he did not miss a single match for Sri Lanka.
“From 2013-2016, Angelo Mathews is the player who notched the most number of games. He is paying the price for that high intensity cricket without rest and recovery. When you play matches, it’s difficult to rehabilitate in-between and get back to keep going. If they had managed his workload at the time, he wouldn’t be in this situation today.”
Further to this Labrooy also revealed a plan to manage players’ workloads by limiting the number of games players such as Mathews, and Kusal Perera, who are more injury prone than others, played in – placing emphasis on long Test series.
“Say, there are 3 Tests, We do not want to play Mathews in the 3rd Test. It also depends on the intensity of the game. If he doesn’t score runs and gets out without spending sufficient time in the middle, then we will play him in the 3rd Test. But, if he gets 2 big hundreds and spends a lot of time in the middle, we will keep him out of the 3rd Test.”
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With the international cricket calendar being packed throughout the year, it is no surprise that many players are breaking down. For Sri Lanka it has unfortunately been their premier batsman Mathews who has suffered.
Mathews was named skipper of the Kandy team for the Super Provincials that are currently underway. However, he is yet to feature in the tournament, but is expected to do so in the upcoming weeks, particularly as the tour of West Indies draws near.
“The reason the 4-day tournament is on during this particular period is to prepare for the West Indies tour, but, as part of managing players, we rested 11 national cricketers for the 1st match. At least 6 of them were match-fit, but we still wanted to rest them for the 1st match. Of the 11, 6 will play in the next match starting Sunday, and 3 in the last one.”
Although the short-term objective of resting Mathews from the Provincial games is to keep him fit for the tour of the West Indies, the long term goal is no doubt to have him back fit and firing for the World Cup in 2019.
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“Our prime objective is the 2019 World Cup and we want those identified players to play at least 15 matches before the World Cup. This is why Sri Lanka Cricket spoke to Cricket South Africa and made a few changes to the schedule, so that the players will play more ODI and T20 matches than Tests, in the run-up to the World Cup.”
Mathews’ all-round ability added much-needed balance to the Lankan line-up as he managed 184 wickets across formats with his medium pace. However, with the demand to play more and more games, and Mathews not getting any younger or fitter, the management has been left with little to no choice but to sacrifice his bowling so that they can have their best batsman back in the team for more prolonged periods.
