After Sri Lanka’s disastrous Asia Cup campaign where they failed to make it past the group stage, Angelo Mathews was dropped as captain and axed from the ODI squad due to his apparent fitness issues and poor running between the wickets.
Coach Chandika Hathurusingha gave the most elaborate and scathing assessment of Mathews’ shortcomings, detailing why he believed Mathews was dragging the team down with his lack of agility.
“Running between the wickets is a very big concern for us at the moment – for the whole team, not only for Mathews,” Hathurusingha had said in September.
“We want him to get fitter. His average since 2017 is 59 – I know that. But there are certain concerns. If you look at his record, he has been involved in about 64 run outs, and 49 times the opposite guy got run out. That’s a world record. Those are the things that we’ve been looking at. But I want him back as fresh as possible, and clear as possible, to serve the Sri Lankan team.”
It wasn’t as simple as that. Mathews has been one of the few consistent performers in ODIs for Sri Lanka, averaging 47 in 13 ODIs in 2016, 63 in 15 games last year and 52 in eight games this year. His chronic hamstring issues meant Mathews couldn’t be used as a regular all-rounder but that doesn’t diminish his record, run-outs aside.
Mathews wanted to prove his fitness but the Sri Lankan management was having none of it. So it was just Test cricket for Mathews.
Since the embarrassing axing where Mathews was pretty much labelled out of shape by selector Graeme Labrooy, the batsman has scored three fifties in four innings against England in the home Test series.
Sri Lanka bossing this hard now. Angelo Mathews is just awesome.
— Peter Miller (@TheCricketGeek) November 17, 2018
His second innings 88 in the Kandy Test while chasing a daunting 301 is one of the finest knocks you will see on a raging turner. After he gave Sri Lanka a shot at glory in the second Test, Mathews made it a point to state that he was playing the same way he had been earlier. Maybe the coach and selector had probably gone too far in casting him aside in ODIs.
“I have done nothing extraordinary when it comes to preparation,” Mathews said. “I have been training the same way for the past 10 years.”
It’s not like Sri Lanka are brimming with talented batsmen or leaders. A player of the caliber and experience of Mathews bring great value to any team he is a part of. Disregarding his stupendous numbers over the last three years and kicking him out of the team did Sri Lanka no good as they lost the ODI series at home to England 3-1.
Mathews showed his class in red-ball cricket against England but it was evident from his steely celebrations upon reaching fifty in the England Tests that he was still smarting from his ODI ouster. It’s the Sri Lankan management that ends up looking out of sync in this situation as Mathews is still churning out the runs.
