New selection committee spells out plans to uplift Sri Lanka cricket

The new cricket selection committee headed by Upul Tharanga (centre) and comprising Tharanga Paranavithana, Ajantha Mendis, Dilruwan Perera and Indika de Saram at the inaugural press conference held at SLC headquarters yesterday

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

Sri Lanka’s new cricket selection committee headed by former ODI captain Upul Tharanga will not pursue the youth only policy but believes that experience in the national team is vital for the development of young players.

The former selection committee headed by Pramodya Wickramasinghe adopted a policy of promoting young players and discarded several experienced hands which had a devastating effect on the performance of the national team.

“We are not going only with young players, we believe that some of the senior cricketers can still deliver for the country as well as for the national team, especially players with international experience,” said Tharanga at the inaugural media conference of the newly appointed selection committee held at the Sri Lanka Cricket headquarters yesterday.

“If they are performing well and have maintained good fitness levels they will be considered for selection. Some of the players may have a chance of even going to the next World Cup,” hinted Tharanga. “We believe experience is important to share with young players, especially the international experience. We don’t have a policy of going only with youngsters, if the seniors are performing we will consider them as well.”

When questioned why Sri Lanka cricket standards had fallen and how the new committee intends to rectify it, Tharanga replied, “What we have found out is that we are not consistent with our performances, one day we play well then for the next few matches we don’t. If you take the World Cup the majority of batsmen got good starts but failed to go and make a big score. If we are to win an ODI or T20I one of the top four batters must contribute a big score, and the others will bat around him. In recent times we have not witnessed a batsman scoring a big hundred which is regrettable.”

It is one of the reasons why the selectors have recalled Avishka Fernando to the ODI squad.

“Avishka’s T20I record is not good, we decided that he is a good player in the ODI format where he has scored heavily. One thing that we lack is batsmen making big contributions and Avishka can do that. In the 2019 World Cup he scored two hundreds. He has the talent and the ability to do that,” said Tharanga.

“If you take the bowling, I think they have performed well in the past few years. Fielding there is a lot of improvements to be made. The NSL (National Super League) and HPC (High Performance Centre) is the place where players are produced. We don’t have proper backup players. If we are to strengthen the national team we must have a backup system. As selectors what we look for is how we can strengthen it.”

Talking of long term and short term plans Tharanga said, “The long term plan is to build a team for the 2027 World Cup and the short term is the T20 World Cup which is coming up in another six months. We will not overlook any players, as a committee we are of the view that experience is vital for the young players to improve their cricket and knowledge.”

With the appointment of Dhananjaya de Silva as the new Test captain, the new selection committee has appointed three different captains for all three formats.

“Personally I am in agreement for having one captain for all three formats, but with the situation we have at present we cannot do that. We discussed at length and decided it is best we go with three different captains for the three formats,” said Tharanga.

“At the moment we want to go with Kusal Mendis for the ODIs and Wanindu Hasaranga for the T20Is. Kusal didn’t get a proper opportunity. He was pushed into the captaincy because (Dasun) Shanaka got injured. Likewise, we want to go with Wanindu as well. We have another four years before the next World Cup, we want to see how Kusal performs as captain and as a player.” When it was pointed out that Mendis was involved in a recent incident during a Major Club Limited Overs match while playing for SSC, Tharanga said, “Discipline is important. At present SSC and Sri Lanka Cricket are inquiring into the incident and they will give us a report shortly.”

Explaining the exclusion of Dhananjaya de Silva from the ODI squad and the non-selection of Dinesh Chandimal, Tharanga said, “We are of the view that Dhananjaya performs when he bats in the first three of the order where he has got big scores. In recent times he has batted in the 6 or 7 positions which has not benefited him or the team. We believe if Dhananjaya is to play ODI cricket he has to bat in the first three. We have told him to play in that position in the domestic matches. We have not forgotten Chandimal. We have spoken to him. He bats at numbers 4 or 5. At the moment we have Sadeera (Samarawickrama) and Charith Asalanka who are playing well in those positions so it is difficult for him to find a place. We have decided on a policy not to change batting positions we bring into the squad.” Likewise, Angelo Mathews and Bhanuka Rajapaksa who were dropped by the previous selectors for lack of fitness find themselves in the T20I squad against Zimbabwe.

“Angelo played in the World Cup. Bhanuka is a player who was in our T20 system. We know that he can win a match for us with his batting as he did in the Asia Cup. Fitness is a priority for players in the national team and we are quite strict about it. There is a T20 World Cup coming in another 5-6 months. We think keeping a player like Bhanuka in the system is good.”