Former Sri Lanka skipper Angelo Mathews has responded to the criticism by Mahela Jayawardene and has urged him to help the team during World Cup 2019. In his tweet, he denied the comments made by Jayawardene and said that his top priory is World Cup at the moment.
Thanks for the concern guys everyone has their opinion and mj has his too.suprised to see some of his comments while denying them my top priority now is the World Cup and I urge mj to help us with his knowledge and encouragement in this crucial time wich will mean alot Thankyou?
— Angelo Mathews (@Angelo69Mathews) May 26, 2019
Recently, Jayawardene had declined the role to work with the Sri Lankan team during World Cup 2019 as there was no clarity over the role. He had also criticised Mathews and Dinesh Chandimal, both former Sri Lankan captains, for giving in to cricket politics.
“He gave in to cricket politics. He allowed other people to make decisions and did not stand up for his players. I have told him this as well and he accepts it,” he had said about Mathews while talking to Sunday Times.
“I think [Chandimal] was another victim of cricket politics. In the sense, he was another player like Angelo Mathews who was snared to elements behind the scene and went along with them rather than taking control of the team and being a strong leader,” Jayawardene had added.
Last year as well, Jayawardene was approached to be a consultant for the Sri Lankan team but then as well, he had denied the position in the board. Sri Lankan cricket has seen the worst times in the past two years and has rotated captains on a regular basis.
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Apart from Angelo Mathews and Dinesh Chandimal, Thisara Perera, Lasith Malinga, Dimuth Karunaratne have led the team. The latter was a surprising choice to lead the team in the Test series against South Africa.
Under him, the visiting team pulled off a heist by defeating Proteas in both the Tes matches. This saw him being named as the captain for World Cup 2019 as well, where he replaced Lasith Malinga as the captain of ODI team. Karunaratne recently played his first ODI – against Scotland – since 2015.
The 1996 World Cup champions, Sri Lanka are not the favourite contender to win the cup and have landed in England as underdogs. They made a surprising decision by excluding the likes of Niroshan Dickwella and Chandimal for World Cup and the team will need out of the box performances to win the tournament.
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Sri Lanka did not have a great time in warm-up matches. They first lost to South Africa after failing to chase down 339 and suffered another defeat against Australia, who chased down a target of 240 without utilising the services of Steve Smith and David Warner.
Sri Lanka kick off their World Cup campaign against New Zealand on June 1.