The new Cricket selection committee headed by Pramodya Wickramasinghe met with senior Sri Lankan Cricketers who are facing the axe from limited over cricket to give reasons.
The new selectors have decided to drop Angelo Mathews, Dimuth Karunaratne, Dinesh Chandimal, Thisara Perera, Nuwan Pradeep & Suranga Lakmal from limited overs cricket in a major revamp.
Speaking to the Sunday Times Newspaper Promodya Wickramasinghe said that Sri Lanka needs to look beyond the misfiring seniors and prepare a team well in advance for the 2023 World Cup, as England did in the run-up to their World Cup victory in 2019.
When the selectors met with the seniors on Thursday (Mathews due to personal reasons and Karunaratne owing to a communication failure did not attend), they had briefed Chandimal and Pradeep as to why they were not picked for the Bangladesh and England limited over series.
“We have taken into consideration the long-term prospects, especially for the World Cup in 2023, We are at the lowest level in white-ball cricket and our interest is not to please anyone but to make Sri Lanka cricket great once again. So I told them not to get hurt.” explained Chief Selector Wickramasinghe to the Sunday Times Newspaper.
According to the Sunday Times Chandimal, a former Sri Lanka skipper, has argued that, as they are in their early 30s, they have a few years of international cricket left in them and therefore, the decision is unfair.
“True that players like Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara and TM Dilshan had long careers but they played on merit. Each time they went to the middle, they performed. But have we been able to witness the same with the current crop of seniors? I know this isn’t a popular decision but this is what we think is the best decision going forward,” Pramodya Wickramasinghe said.
Chief Selector has also informed the senior players that they could still make a comeback purely on merit if they maintain their fitness levels according to standards expected and perform in domestic cricket.
“If we think we need solidity at the top of the order, we could still recall Dimuth to the side or Chandimal or Mathews into the middle but to do that, we need them to be on par in performance and fitness with the young players. We are no longer chasing scores less than 300 for victory in ODI cricket. We are looking at scores in excess of 350 and we need players fitter, agile and aggressive,” he told the Sunday Times Newspaper. (NewsWire)
Avishka Fernando dropped 👇
http://www.cricwire.lk/2021/05/09/avishka-dropped-after-failing-fitness-test-new-18-member-squad/
