Sri Lanka’s head coach Mickey Arthur ordered the national squad to get off from social media on Saturday after disgruntled fans launched a campaign to boycott the cricketers after suffering consecutive losses overseas. The South African coach said players were getting “absolutely hammered” and it was affecting their judgment and mood ahead of the preparations for the T20 World Cup later this year.

Talking about these same ahead of Sri Lanka’s three-match T20 tournament against India, Mickey Arthur said, “Some of the stuff listed there is beyond comprehensible.”

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Sri Lanka managed to deprive India of a clean sweep of the ODI series by winning the third and final match on Friday. They will be hosting India for the T20 tournament against India on Sunday after losing five straight series, with the last defeat coming against England earlier this month. The decision to order the squad off social media came after Sri Lankan fans initiated a campaign to boycott their players from social media. 

Describing the same, Mickey Arthur said, “My advice to the guys is just staying off it. You get absolutely hammered on it. There is only one way to handle it and that is not to look. So my best advice is just to get over it because there are some idiots there who think they know exactly what’s going on, when in fact they know nothing.”

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The Sri Lankan coach said players should take his example of not engaging on social media and said he only signed up to Twitter in April last year because of a coronavirus lockdown. But Arthur took to Twitter himself on Wednesday to deny that he had a spat with skipper Dasun Shanaka after suffering a loss in the second ODI to India this week. Shanaka later told reporters that the bust-up was about tactics.