“Won’t quit captaincy”: Angelo Mathews
Jul 3, 2016 at 11:51 AM
Following a loss in the Test series and one-day series against the hosts England, the captain of Sri Lanka Angelo Mathews has clearly said that he has no plans to quit captaincy. Though he looked quite upset after a loss in the last ODI but denied any chance of leaving the captaincy.
The Sri Lankan team started their England tour with a test series which followed two One Day clashes against Ireland. The five-match ODI series was played after this. The Lankan team suffered a defeat in test series by 2-0. The ODI wins against Ireland is the only thing to cheer about on this tour as of now. In the five matches ODI series that followed against England, they suffered a series defeat by 3-0. One match was washed off whereas one match ended in a tie.
Still, Captain Mathews has no intentions to quit captaincy as he is hopeful for a bright future. “There will be good times as well as bad, This is a tough time for me as a captain and for the whole unit but you can’t run away from it,” Mathews said after the series defeat.
Mathews also pointed out the weakness of the team. He counted the problems that lead to the defeat and blamed all the departments but in the end did not forgot to congratulate the England team for this triumph and also showered praises on their boys “I’m pretty sure if we keep improving (on) day-by-day we can come out of this hole. For the past two months we have been having the same problems, either batting, bowling or fielding has let us down in every single game. Especially in the one-dayers, we needed a perfect day to win against England. We didn’t have that perfect game and we paid the price. Congratulations to the English boys, they put us under a lot of pressure and didn’t give us the slightest of chances. They outplayed us in all three departments,”
Mathews was appointed as the captain of Sri Lankan test and ODI team in the year 2013 before he took over as captain in the shortest format of the game before this year’s T20 world cup.
The touring party will be playing the last match of the tour on Tuesday taking on the T20 World Cup finalist in the shortest format of the game at Southampton.
Mathews is surely under immense pressure following the series defeat but he has a chance to redeem himself in the home series against Australia later this month. The tour will consist of 3 Test matches followed by 5 One Day clashes and 2 T20Is.