Sri Lankan cricket has been in all sorts of trouble recently as they lost to Zimbabwe in an ODI series 3-2 at home. Then, they were absolutely humiliated by India 3-0 in the Test series. In the ongoing ODI series as well, they haven’t given too much competition to the visitors either.
Angelo Mathews had given up the captaincy after the Zimbabwe series but former Sri Lankan captain Arjuna Ranatunga reckons it wasn’t a pretty wise move at that stage.
“Mathews is the best captain I have seen after Ranjan Madugalle. When he said that he wanted to quit, SLC should have told him to hang in there without throwing the towel in. If I had any say, I would have told him that this is not the time to quit,” Ranatunga told Cricbuzz.
Mathews was made the scapegoat
The charge to lead the Test side was handed over to Dinesh Chandimal and Upul Tharanga was made the captain of the ODI and T20I teams. Ranatunga believes Mathews was made the scapegoat after the devastating loss to Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka cricket board should have given him more confidence to stay at that role for longer.
“When Sri Lanka whitewashed number one ranked Australia in the Test series last year, there were a lot of people to take credit, but sadly when he lost he was made the scapegoat and all the blame was on him,” he added.
“Mathews was a very positive captain, but due to constant changes and lots of chopping and changing he started becoming negative because he lost the confidence,” the 1996 World Cup-winning captain said.
Ranatunga is perhaps correct in his arguments as the Sri Lankan cricket is going through a turmoil. They have a pretty young and inexperienced side across formats. It would have been better if a vastly experienced player like Angelo Mathews got the backing of the board he guided the side during the tough times.
