Mahela says he bats for player-manager concept
Former national cricket captain Mahela Jayawardena is clearly perturbed by the current Player-Manager poser that has taken Sri Lanka’s cricket by storm. The champion cricketer feels that targeting one such player-manager leaves a bad taste.
Jayawardena does not buy the idea of player-managers are influencing team selections. He is one of the senior players who have enlisted the services of Englishman Charlie Austin to be their manager. Others include Angelo Mathews, Kumar Sangakkara, Lasith Malinga, Dinesh Chandimal and Upul Tharanga to name a few.
Speaking exclusively to the Sunday Times, Jayawardena said: “The general practice is the captain and the coach sit along with the national selectors and once the consultations are over, they leave the selectors alone to complete the task on their own. So there is very little chance for the captain to influence the selection process. On the other hand, all the national cricket selectors have played the game at the highest level and they know what cricket is all about.”
Jayawardena asserted that besides the selectors, the coach and the captain and a few others are also privy to this information on the team selection. It may be another senior player or a high cricket official. In that line of information the player-manager arrives quite down the line.
Explaining further, the former national captain said, “What the Lankans get from the player-manager deal is nothing compared to some of the other player-manager overseas. Our player-manager does not have any share in the central contract signed by the particular player or the moneys they get from ICC deals. The Lankan player-manager gets only the income what he derives through commercial deals.
“If the current captain is influencing the team in any manner, it should end up in positive results. At the same time we are a team which has been in five World Cup finals – winning one during the past ten years, but currently the playing field is different.”
Jayawardena also pointed out that at one point of time Sri Lanka’s cricketers were helped along by the Sri Lanka Cricket Players Association but sadly that also came to a halt in 2011.