“Mathews too, must understand this responsibility and should work to rebuild the team”
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Angelo Mathews will keep on leading leading Sri Lanka until the 2019 World Cup after he received a vote of confidence from Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) president president Thilanga Sumathipala and chief selector Sanath Jayasuriya.
Mathews had come under heavy criticism following Sri Lanka’s recent 3-0 whitewashing in their Test series in South Africa.
However, on Wednesday, Sumathipala made it clear that he, the rest of the board and Jayasuriya are confident that Mathews is still the right man for the job.
“Mathews too, must understand this responsibility and should work to rebuild the team,” Sumathipala said. “We hope that the South African pitches for the T20I and ODI series will be more familiar to our players.”
Sumathipala heaped praise on Sri Lanka’s pace attack for their valiant effort during the Test series against the Proteas. Suranga Lakmal and Lahiru Kumara were the standout seamers for Sri Lanka as they took 12 and 11 wickets respectively.
“We have selected the best 11 out of 20. If we are afraid of losing, we will not learn to win,” Sumathipala added. “It is quite pathetic to accept that we could not go beyond the 150-mark in three innings. We not only failed in the batting, but we missed some crucial catches where we could have put pressure on the South African batting.
“The truth is that we were not capable of facing the pace and bounce. We have to find a solution to this. We are quite satisfied with coach Graham Ford’s service. Instead of pointing fingers at people, we have to re-unite to get the team on a winning path.”
Speaking about the series, Jayasuriya admitted that he was not surprised to see the national team struggle in South African conditions.
“We had included a bunch of young cricketers to South Africa, thinking about the future of the national team,” Jayasuriya said. “They need time to mould. So we have to accept the loss. We have just begun.
“As the Sri Lanka team is full of young blood, it is not a surprise that they faced a setback in South Africa. Even though we have given them the best squad, things did not turn out as we thought. We wanted one of the top-four batsmen to play a long innings and score a hundred. At least two or three batsmen should have played a long innings. But it did not work.”
Jayasuriya added that that Mathews should not be held fully responsible for the 3-0 loss.
“This is not a time to blame and destroy Mathews’ captaincy. This is a time when we have to strengthen Mathews,” he said. “As a former captain I know how these allegations can badly affect Mathews’ morale, especially during a series. We have to support Mathews, correct our faults and face the T20I and ODI series’ with confidence.”