The legendary Sri Lankan cricketer Mahela Jayawardene has rejected a request to provide consultancy services to the struggling national squad as he has no trust in the system. On Thursday, the Sri Lankan national selectors made a formal request to hire former legends including Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara, to a special committee advising on how to return to winning ways.
Last year Sri Lanka suffered a series Test and ODI whitewash to India on home soil, lost a one-day series to bottom-ranked Zimbabwe, also held in Sri Lanka, and crashed out of the Champions Trophy in the league stages as well. They were comprehensively defeated in the first Test of the ongoing Test series against the Windies last weekend and in the first innings of the second Test on Thursday were bundled out for 253.
In 2016, Jayawardene was appointed to a special panel to advise the then-sports minister on corrective measures. But on Thursday he said that his recommendations were neglected and that he did not want a repeat of the experience.
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Jayawardene expressed his concerns on Twitter, he wrote: “With all due respect to the selectors & the sports minister I have spent 1 year in the cricket committee & 6 months in a special advisory committee & no recommendations were implemented. I don’t have any trust in the system. If anyone wants to buy time please don’t use us!”
With all due respect to the selectors & the sports minister i have spent 1 year in the cricket committee & 6 months in a special advisory committee & no recomendations were implimented. I dont have any trust in the system. If any one wants to buy time please dont use us! https://t.co/tRXyLJ65n3
— Mahela Jayawardena (@MahelaJay) June 14, 2018
However, Sangakkara is yet to reply on the same.
Jayawardene, a former Sri Lanka captain, scored 11,814 Test runs playing in 149 matches. He also played as many as 448 ODI for the Islanders even he scored a century during Sri Lanka’s defeat by India in the 2011 World Cup final in Mumbai, as well as playing in 55 T20 Internationals.
