Chairman cricket selection committee Asantha de Mel feels that Mahela Jayawardena should lead Sri Lanka till the next Cricket World Cup in 2015.  De Mel said “Our thinking was the same. Talking to skipper Mahela Jayawardena and Kumar Sangakkara we feel that they are keen to play till the next World Cup. We think that [...]

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The Sundaytimes Sri Lanka

Mahela should lead Sri Lanka till next Cricket World Cup says chief selector

By S.R. Pathiravithana
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Chairman cricket selection committee Asantha de Mel feels that Mahela Jayawardena should lead Sri Lanka till the next Cricket World Cup in 2015.  De Mel said “Our thinking was the same. Talking to skipper Mahela Jayawardena and Kumar Sangakkara we feel that they are keen to play till the next World Cup. We think that they both want to retire with the next World Cup. Best thing for Sri Lanka Cricket would be if Mahela could captain the country till the next World Cup.

“By chance if he does not want to captain, then we have to look at the present vice captain Angelo Mathews. Why we initially brought in Mahela as captain was, there was a time that Angelo Mathews had not cemented his place in the line-up. We could not appoint him as captain because when we select the playing Xl, we were not sure that his name would be included. So it was a difficult situation to appoint a captain. We did not want a situation where the captain can’t get into the team. That is why we asked Mahela to come and take the captaincy in the short term and help us through.

“However during the last year Mathews during the last year has played well and cemented his place in side in all forms of the game. Now by chance if Mahela says no Mathews can take over. He also have experience as he has captained about 3-4 games when Mahela has been rested. But, in the grater interest of Sri Lanka cricket if Mahela can captain till the next World Cup it would be best thing.”

Mahela Jayawardena initially took over the captaincy from the then captain and the present national batting coach Marvan Atapattu in 2007 and made his mark by leading the country to a 5-0 ODI whitewash against England and then took the country to the 2007 Cricket World Cup in the West Indies. He relinquished his position as captain in 2009.Hailed as one of the best captains that Sri Lanka has produced Mahela was invited to take up the captaincy last year after T.M. Dilshan resigned as captain and up to now have led the side with acceptable results.

Under Kumar Sangakkara Sri Lanka ended up as the runners-up of the 2011 cricket World Cup which was played in the Indian sub-continent and the next World Cup will be played in Australia and New Zealand.




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