Mathews is ready to take on the challenges he will face as captain

Sri Lanka all-rounder Angelo Mathews has announced that he is ready to start a new legacy after taking over the Test captaincy from Mahela Jayawardene.

Jayawardene reluctantly accepted the role as captain in January last year after opening batsman Tillkaratne Dilshan stepped down, but ever since agreeing to be skipper, Jayawardene has seemed extremely eager to hand the reigns over to someone else.

Since nobody stepped up initially, prior to the start of the three-Test series against Australia, Jayawardene announced that the series would be his last as captain, which prompted the national selectors and Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) to find a suitable replacement, which just so happened to be Mathews since he had done an excellent job as the leader of the Twenty20 side.

Mathews has been scoring more and more runs in Test cricket and the national selectors believed it was time to give him full control since he has been the vice-captain of all three teams as of July 2011.

Mathews’ ability to bat under pressure and provide the breakthrough with the ball at any given point in time makes him appear to be perfect captaincy material.

“I think that’s totally up to the selectors – if they think I’m ready for the captaincy, I’m ready,” Mathews said. “It doesn’t really matter for now because Mahela’s been a great captain for years and I think he’s been serving the country for decades. But if the selectors think I’m ready – it’s up to them.”

With Mathews poised and ready to take up the challenge of captaining his country, many cricket pundits have pointed out that he could be leading one of the oldest Sri Lankan sides in history, but the all-rounder disputes this and instead noted that having veterans in the side was more of a blessing than anything else.

“When I initially got into the team, there were so many captains,” Mathews added. “Sanath Jayasuriya was there, and now we have Dilshan, Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela. They teach us a lot and we can always go back to them to ask questions, and they’re always willing to help out. There’s a lot we can learn from Mahela.”

Mathews already has a good reputation of being an economical bowler across all three formats, but the all-rounder is hoping to bowl more overs come the limited overs series against Australia.

“I’ve been managing myself on different conditions, and Mahela has been pretty good with that,” Mathews said. “In Australia, the conditions might suit my bowling and I’m hopeful of bowling plenty of overs.”

In terms of the ongoing debate about whether Dimuth Karunaratne or Tharanga Paranavitana should be Sri Lanka’s opening batsman in Test matches, Mathews said: “Dimuth is a very aggressive player, he always looks to score runs, while Paranavitana has been having a pretty bad run in the recent past. I think Dimuth has a slight edge, but we haven’t decided on anything.”