Spin legend Muttiah Muralitharan, on Thursday (July 27), said Sri Lanka is enduring a difficult time because of under performing youngsters and the team management’s attempt to tinker with the playing eleven every now and then.
For a country which made it to the World Cup finals in 2007 and 2011 and World T20I finals in 2009, 2012 and 2014 (winners), the last couple of years have been absolutely inexplicable.
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Barring the 3-0 whitewash of Australia in the Test series at home last year, Sri Lanka has very little to show for their performance in the last two seasons. In fact, 2017 has been the worse and the way things are going at the moment, Sri Lankan cricket’s condition is only going to deteriorate.
The year began with the 3-0 and 5-0 whitewashes in Tests and ODI, respectively in South Africa before the T20 series win against the Proteas and Australia gave little respite.
However, failure to win the series at home against Bangladesh and a group-stage exit from the Champions Trophy extended the poor run. Then came the ODI series loss against Zimbabwe which led to Angelo Mathews’ resignation as the captain in all the formats.
“We lost in the Zimbabwe series for the first time ever in Sri Lanka that means we’re not performing well,” Murali, who is the spin bowling consultant of Bengal’s Vision 2020 programme, said and added: “We have the talent but at the moment a lot of senior players are retired. The younger players are not performing well. Too many are playing and every time the team is changed.”
Sri Lanka’s miseries have only compounded in the first Test against India, as the visitors have piled up a mammoth 600 runs and reduced the hosts to 154 for five by the end of the second day. Muralitharan feels batting first has put India in a good position in the match.
“India will have a better opportunity than Sri Lanka this time. The wicket there is good for batting in the first two days then it starts to spin… So always who bats first have a better chance of winning,” Murali said.
Speaking of Rangana Herath’s poor performance, he said:
“Wicket didn’t help much and India batted well on the first two days.”
Herath, who is leading the side in Dinesh Chandimal’s absence, conceded 159 runs at an economy of almost 4 and took just one wicket.
Muralitharan had criticised the Sri Lankan players in the past also when he had said that the current Sri Lankan players were not capable of playing in the Indian Premier League.
“At the moment, Sri Lanka does not have capable players to play in the IPL. Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and England, there are a lot of good players there. The tournament can have 32 international players, our guys don’t fit into it,” he had said.