The ongoing assumption that the lack of a proper domestic first-class tournament has been a main cause for the decline of the national cricket team’s present predicament at international level took a new turn with legendary fast bowler Lasith Malinga blaming the plight on the loss of a generation of players.
Following Thursday’s 168-run defeat in the fourth one-day international to India at the R Premadasa Stadium, Malinga stated, “I’m not sure if there is a problem at domestic cricket, but what I personally think is that our problems are because we lost a generation of players. If that generation was here, we wouldn’t have an inexperienced team like this at international level.”
“We had players like Chamara Silva, Thilina Kandamby, Jehan Mubarak, Malinga Bandara, Kaushal Lokuarachchi, Kaushal Weeraratne, Tharanga Paranavitana and Malinda Warnapura. Those players played about 10 years of domestic cricket by the time they were 29 or 30, and played internationals for two or three years. Then they were out of the international scene. We lost that 10-12 years of experience from them,” said Malinga.
“It’s really hard to get that experience from a fresh-out-of-school cricketer or a club cricketer. The loss of that generation is being felt in our cricket. If they had still been here – I don’t know why we lost them – we would have had the ability to field 6 or 7 experienced players in the team.
“When I started playing in 2004, there were 7 or 8 experienced players in the team. A few years ago we lost that. Now our cricket has declined. We are hoping to go to the World Cup and I hope that we’ll be able to take the cricketers who are here now. We should all try to make that happen,” he said,
Malinga called on the cricket authorities to have consistency in the selection of players and not to be swayed by public opinion expressed by various individuals.
“In a year you might play 25 ODIs. And I haven’t seen a single player playing all 25 matches. Angelo, Thirimanne and me aside, most of the team has not played more than 30 ODIs,” noted Malinga
“When you look at other teams, you can think about how many of their players have played a lot of matches, and then you will see our shortcomings. If you take our 11 cricketers, how many ODIs have they played? We are lacking in those experienced players.
“That’s why when a difficult situation comes and we’re playing against a good team, we find it hard to come out of that. We need to give these guys a place and experience until 2019. We need to be patient. We need to get together as a country. If we keep criticising everyone one by one, we will keep getting these new teams. We have to protect the players we have,” he said.
“The current thinking is always “The player who is in the team is bad, but the one outside deserves a place”. As a player who has played 14 years international cricket, I think the people who are in the team are there because they are better than those outside.”
Malinga stated that since the fifth ODI against Zimbabwe Sri Lanka has been unable to get past the 250-run mark and that was due to the lack of international experience from the players.
“Since the last match of the Zimbabwe series, we couldn’t be successful. In that match we only got about 200 and since then we haven’t been able to pass 250. I think, personally, if we are playing at international level, it’s when you get experience at international level that you understand how to handle difficult situations,” said Malinga.
“A lot of our players are inexperienced at international level, though they get their places because they perform at domestic level. If we gave some chances to the young players here, we will get players who can play for a long time. If we can give them experience to the team that goes to the 2019 World Cup, then you will have players who have played 30-50 ODIs.
“In previous teams, you had players who had played 100 ODIs or at least 50 ODIs. We need that. Every other team in the world has that experience in their XI. We need to get there. We need to give the young players more matches and get them to the place we need them to be. That’s what’s important,” he said.
Malinga pointed out why Sri Lanka keeps failing to win matches is because the young players don’t have the confidence to play their natural game.
“They (the players) tried their best. I feel they don’t have much confidence to play their natural game because the last couple of matches they lost and they didn’t get much runs, they feel they have to score every single match.
“Most of the players are young. They haven’t played much international cricket. They are excited to perform, and if you are excited you can do more mistakes. I feel that’s the reason why our fielding is not good. It has been the situation in the last couple of months,” he said.
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