Arjuna Ranatunga criticised Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara

Sri Lanka’s World Cup winning captain Arjuna Ranatunga criticised two retired cricket greats Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene at a public ceremony in Nittambuwa, a small town located in Colombo-Kandy highway, on September 17.  

Ranatunga alleged that the two former Sri Lanka captains did not give an opportunity to young cricketers to be groomed as they held onto their batting positions in the side for a long period that weaken Sri Lanka’s batting, dailymirror.lk reported.

Drawing his own example, Ranatunga said, he started playing as the number four batsman and twilight of his career, he moved down to number seven in order to give chance young stars to groom themselves.

“Today, the discipline of the players has deteriorated completely. I played as the number four batsman and toward the latter part of my career, I moved down to number seven. That was in order to let other younger players have a chance to establish themselves in a batting position. But in the recent past, Sangakkara played at number three every day. Mahela Jayawardene played at number four. They didn’t allow younger players to consolidate those positions,” said Ranatunga.

 

Meanwhile, he not only criticised the duo, but also the administrator as he claimed that the former interim committee members tried to please certain players to get benefit from endorsement. Ranatunga is not happy with Sangakkara’s decision to play for English county Surrey, leaving inexperienced Sri Lanka in the middle of the series against India. Ranatunga said Sri Lanka Cricket is going to make a policy for players to accept playing for the country as their first priority.

“But I don’t put the main blame on the players. I blame the administrators – former interim committee members. What they wanted was to please certain individual players. To let them enjoy personal profits. As a result, we failed to achieve victories as a team. Because of this, we are going to make it a policy for all players to accept playing for the country as their first priority. Money and positions would only be second and third priorities. First and foremost would be to play for the country,” claimed Ranatunga.

Ranatunga also revealed that we might contest the presidency of the SLC at the next election, which is expected to be held in November this year. He said his final decision would be announced in two weeks as he is still discussing it with several parties.

“A lot of unwanted things happened in cricket in the recent past. I feel that we have to stop all that and support taking cricket forward. I am closer to the SLC Presidency. I will reveal that later,” said Ranatunga.