Right time to give Mathews captaincy says http://www.senore.com/Cricket/DPMD-Jayawardene-c1397 – Cricket News Update
Sri Lankan Test and ODI skipper, Mahela Jayawardene, believes that http://www.senore.com/Cricket/AD-Mathews-c913 is qualified to succeed him as the future leader of the national team.
Jayawardene returned to lead the side for the second time earlier in the year, replacing http://www.senore.com/Cricket/TM-Dilshan-c2691, under whom the team failed to gel as a unit and reproduce the goods required to match other top Test playing nations.
That moved ultimately proved fruitful for the Lankans http://www.senore.com/Cricket/M-Muralitharan-c1864. They further performed ably in the One-day and T20 arena, notably qualifying for the Commonwealth Bank series final, where they contested Australia, and further reached the World T20 finale, played at their own back yard.
Since the start of the year, he has led the team in 42 matches (across all formats), and managed to win 19 times. Moreover, he has averaged an impressive 55.68 when the team has recorded a victory.
However, given his age, he has always declared his intentions to hand over the captaincy to a younger, able hand, which allows the team to build for the future. Mathews has been the team’s deputy for almost a year, and was further appointed as the T20 skipper in the wake of the team’s defeat against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/West-Indies-c760 in the World T20 final.
Despite injuries remaining his biggest enemy, Mathews has time and again shown his prowess with both, bat and ball. In the recently concluded Test series, he ably led the batting line with scores of 79, 47 and 84, which will put him in good stead ahead of the testing trip Down Under.
Jayawardene, who said that he will assess his own future after the bouts against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746, was more than eager to see Mathews as his successor.
"As a deputy he has contributed on the field and off the field and that is something that the public and others don't see. He is very mature. The other important thing is he's earned the respect of all the players, the younger and older players.
"In a way personally I feel that it would be better for him to be captain while there are some senior hands around in the team to help him rather than him taking over when there is no one. You can look at it in different ways.
"You never know whether he can handle the situation unless you give him that opportunity. It could be the right time to give Angelo the captaincy."
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