Angelo Mathews pulled out of the upcoming limited-overs series against India citing personal reasons as Sri Lanka Cricket announced that 29 of the 30 players short-listed for the assignment have signed their contracts.
The 34-year-old Angelo Mathews was not a part of the squad that toured England recently and last played the Test series against Bangladesh in April-May. The India series comprising three ODIs and as many T20s begins on July 13.
Angelo Matthews Requested Sri Lankan Cricket To Relieve Him From National Duties Owing To Personal Reasons
Angelo Mathews has played 90 Tests, 218 ODIs, and 78 T20Is amassing above 10,000 international runs in 3 formats combined. His average of 44.86 in Tests and 41.67 in ODIs is also enviable. He has also picked about 180 wickets with his right-arm medium pace.
“Sri Lanka Cricket wishes to announce that 29 players, out of the 30 members nominated by the Cricket Selectors to be considered for the White-Ball Series against India, have signed the Tour Contract,” said the SLC in a statement.
“Angelo Mathews, who was included in the respective 30-member squad, requested Sri Lanka Cricket to relieve him from National Duties, owing to personal reasons, until further notice.”
Angelo Mathews And Dimuth Karunaratne Were Excluded From The Contracts According To Sources As The Former Is Considering Retirement
Sources, however, told that Angelo Mathews, the seniormost among the current crop of players, and Test captain Dimuth Karunaratne were excluded from the contracts that were offered on Wednesday morning. An unhappy Angelo Mathews has reportedly written to the SLC administration stating that he is considering retirement. He is expected to make a formal announcement of his intentions in a few days.
“What the SLC did on Wednesday was to offer contracts on the basis of each tour”, a source said: “There will be no annual contracts as the immediate need was to sign players for the series against India,” he said.
The source said that all players who had previously refused to sign contracts did sign them on Wednesday after they were given a July 8 deadline. Under the SLC’s performance-based pay plan, 24 of the leading players had been offered contracts under four categories.
In the categories released, only six players were in category A and their annual pay ranged between USD 70,000 to 100,000. Reports said all-rounder Dhananjaya de Silva and wicketkeeper Niroshan Dickwella were offered the highest pay grade of USD 100,000 each.
Players felt the plan lacked transparency and the proposed pay would be much lower than the approved scales of the Federation of International Cricket Association (FICA). The players had flown to England for the limited-overs tour without signing national contracts. Sri Lanka lost all their matches in England barring a rained-out game.
The strict selection policy of SLC has seen experienced players making way for youngsters. This decision was taken considering the 2023 World Cup.
In the wake of this new policy, Dimuth Karunaratne and Dinesh Chamdimal have been sidelined. Thisara Perera announced an early retirement from international cricket and perhaps the same has also induced Angelo Mathews who is also thinking over his retirement plans.
The national squad, which has suffered a number of defeats on the pitch and discipline problems out of competition, has been at loggerheads with Sri Lanka Cricket since May over the new contracts. Dimuth Karunaratne and Angelo Mathews have been left out of the squad to play India in three one-day internationals and three Twenty20 games against India starting July 13 in Colombo.