We haven’t done justice to ourselves – Mathews

Angelo Mathews

• Laments on team’s failure to make it to the T20 WC Super 8s

Sri Lanka’s most senior and experienced cricketer in their T20 World Cup squad, 37-year-old Angelo Mathews lamented how they had let themselves down as well as the country, by failing to qualify to play in the Super 8s of the T20 World Cup.

Sri Lanka who were in Group D are still without a single win after three games having lost their first two games to South Africa and Bangladesh. They have one point from the washout game against Nepal and played their final match of the World Cup, the Netherlands on Sunday night. It has been a tough campaign for the team.

“I think first of all we’ve let the entire nation down and we are really sorry because we’ve let ourselves down,” said Mathews. “We never expected this. I mean, we came across a lot of challenges but those are not something to sort of worry about, but it’s unfortunate that we didn’t make the second round.”

“We can’t take any given team lightly. It’s unfortunate that our Nepal game was washed out. But it is what it is. We have just one more game in the tournament, and we’ll play for our pride. We haven’t done justice to ourselves, especially the way we played in the first two games. It’s very unfortunate, we are heartbroken, and we are hurting so much within ourselves.”

The irony of it is that Afghanistan and Bangladesh, two teams which Sri Lanka beat prior to the T20 World Cup have made it to the Super 8s.

“That’s something that we regret because the way we played Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, and Bangladesh in Bangladesh, I thought we didn’t do justice to our capabilities in this tournament,” said Mathews.

The Sri Lankan cricket fans have vented their frustrations at Sri Lanka’s poor performance on social media.

“They gave us great support, no matter where we played. Even if it’s in Sri Lanka or even here, there was a lot supporting us anyway that is possible for them. I feel very sorry as we couldn’t do anything for them. I want to apologise for that. Actually no one is going to lose a match. We always try to win the match. We couldn’t do that in this tournament.”

With regard to the logistical issues the team had to put up with during the tournament, Mathews said, “I think in my career, we have never travelled this much for a World Cup. It’s not an excuse, but it is about the reality. Only Sri Lanka and the Dutch team played the four matches of this tournament at four different locations. In my career, this is the most travelled World Cup in history.” – (ST)​​