{"id":81349,"date":"2018-09-24T16:28:36","date_gmt":"2018-09-24T23:28:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=81349"},"modified":"2018-09-24T16:28:36","modified_gmt":"2018-09-24T23:28:36","slug":"matthews-should-not-be-held-responsible-for-lankas-debacle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/09\/24\/matthews-should-not-be-held-responsible-for-lankas-debacle\/","title":{"rendered":"Matthews Should Not Be Held Responsible for Lanka’s Debacle."},"content":{"rendered":"

\u200b<\/strong>Top Spin by Suni<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

\u00a0 – 23rd Sept 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n

It seems unfair that Angelo Mathews has to bear the crunch of what happened at the Asia Cup as contrary to what some critics seem to think there is a limit to what a captain can do towards a favourable outcome if the odds are stacked against him and in his case at Dubai they certainly were.<\/p>\n

Resting on ones laurels over past successes and past track records amount to zilch if the present team has snags and shortcomings and despite being a talented squad which was expected to come up shining they faltered in the opening round and were beaten\u200b by unlikely opponents who in the past would have been brushed away with ease.<\/p>\n

The team simply did not perform and not a thousand Mathews at their best could have altered the outcome of the disastrous results as the weak top order failed to deliver and the bowling was mediocre to moot so what can one expect from such a team and why blame Matthews who is a classy, talented and assertive player but not\u00a0 a one man show,<\/p>\n

True enough he is supposed to motivate and spur on the players towards knocking over the opponents but in this case Bangladesh and Afghanistan proved to be their nemeses as vastly improve teams with a will to win and the dily dallying approach of the Lankan\u00a0 players seemed to be waiting for the outcome to be decided by\u00a0 fate rather than performance as a team and fate indeed it was that sent them crashing out as a team where all Angelo Mathews could do was watch as his team crumbled.<\/p>\n

He has accepted his critics with dignity and not blamed others but there seem to be contributory factors which could have possibly prevented the\u00a0 losses but history now,’ as the team must move on with important games looming in the near future.<\/p>\n

It’s upto the coach and the team to go back to the drawing board and start anew their campaigns where there are a few issues that need to be addressed, one being the selection committee and its head who MUST take a part of the blame as being theirs, where certain key players were left out who might have made a difference. The general attitude of the chairman of selectors seems awry and questionable and probably time he was let go as he seems to be more a hindrance to the betterment of the team rather that an asset with his autocratic draconian and brash mentality which could be demoralizing to some players.<\/p>\n

Then there is the issue of discipline where undisciplined players appear to be a bad influence on the team per se and quick rehabilitation efforts need to be set in place where the ground rules have to be stringent and a no nonsense approach towards reprisals and penalties should be in order as a deterrent ( Mathews himself has shown concern over this and needs to be pursued ) and the team need to get back into a winning mode post haste to soften the rumblings from many sources who believe the team is in the brink of disaster which if true needs to be averted.<\/p>\n

As Mr Magic – Kumar Sangakkara has aptly commented ” The Coach Hathurusighe\u00a0 will get them going again !! ” which hopefully will be in the winning direction where there is much to be done collectively as a team where Angelo Mathews still needs to be an integral part of the team where it would be a shame to lose such a talented and brilliant gentleman player who needs a confidence booster and its upto the coach and the team to provide this rather than platforms to discourage him.<\/p>\n

There is also the excitement in the air that Tillekeratne Dilshan may be contemplating a comeback which if true could be just the panacea the team needs as there still seems to be a lot of cricket left in him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u200bTop Spin by Suni \u00a0 – 23rd Sept 2018 It seems unfair that Angelo Mathews has to bear the crunch of what happened at the Asia Cup as contrary to what some critics seem to think there is a limit to what a captain can do towards a favourable outcome if the odds are stacked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sunil-kumar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81349\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}