After suffering a humiliating 3-0 Test series defeat at the hands of South Africa, many fans, pundits and cricket analysts urged a change of captaincy in the national Cricket team and also predicted that the captaincy would be split after the current tour.
Sri Lanka Cricket President Thilanga Sumathipala and National Chairman of Selectors, Sanath Jayasuriya confirmed today that they have considered a change in captaincy.
“We are still in the middle of a tour and we have no intention of changing the captain at the moment. We didn’t even talk a word about it. As I said last year, Angelo Mathews will be our captain till the 2019 World Cup. He has great responsibility and accountability as a player and as Captain.” Sumathipala said at a press conference held on Thursday.
Jayasuriya added to Mr. Sumathipala’s comments on the issue, saying, “When we lose, many people point fingers at the captain but that should not be the way. This is not the correct time to discuss the Captaincy because we are still in the middle of a tour. There may be flaws in Mathews’ captaincy because no one is perfect but at the moment, we should encourage him to do better in the coming T20Is and ODIs. If we lose those games as well, then we will discuss the captaincy matter but for now, there will be no split in captaincy.”
The SLC officials held a special conference call with the Team Management on Tuesday to discuss the strategies for the upcoming T20Is and 50-over series and the meeting according to officials of SLC, helped boost the morale of the team.
“We needed to give them some confidence and wanted them to play to their strengths in white-ball cricket. We are extremely disappointed in the performances during the Tests, especially of the batsmen, but I’m confident that our team will bounce back. Our fast-bowlers were very impressive, that is a good sign for Sri Lanka Cricket. Our main focus is to have at least 4-6 fast-bowlers who can bowl over 140kmph.” Sumathipala further stated.
All three Tests were played on pitches designed to help South Africa’s fast bowlers but the tourists can look forward to more batsmen-friendly pitches in the shorter formats of the game.
None of the Sri Lankan batsmen were able to register tons during the Test series as only three half-centuries were scored, with Sri Lanka’s batting average for the series being 18.80, which is their 2nd lowest average in Test series featuring 3 or more games.
“I’m not the happiest man at the moment to talk about the current series. But with this kind of a young team, we will have to expect these kinds of setbacks. As a batting unit, we need to improve when we are on away tours.” Sanath Jayasuriya said.
During the latter part of 2016, certain media reports published that Sanath Jayasuriya and his selection committee will resign due to the inexplicit involvement of SLC officials in selection matters but Jayasuriya assured those present that there will be no resignation from him or any of his committee members.
