Selectors will have to start from the bottom: Jayasuriya

Wednesday, 4 May 2016 00:26 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

ESPNCricinfo: Sri Lanka’s new selectors will have to “start from the bottom”, chief selector Sanath Jayasuriya has said, after selection strategy between his two stints had set the team back.

Jayasuriya was chief selector from February 2013 to March 2015, before his panel was succeeded by one headed by Kapila Wijegunawardene. After that committee was ousted, Jayasuriya helped select the Test squad to England and is now back as chief selector, since May 1.

“I did everything 100% for Sri Lankan cricket,” Jayasuriya told BBC Sinhala. “But if even a little was detracted from that work, then we would have had substantial setbacks because of that. Now what we have to do is start from the bottom. There is a bigger responsibility for me in this stint, than there was when I was first a selector.”

Sri Lanka have defeated a Full-Member side only once this year, beating India in a T20I in Pune. During Jayasuriya’s first tenure, the team had won the 2014 World T20 and a Test series in England, before losing in New Zealand, and making a quarter-final exit in the 2015 World Cup. Jayasuriya said he accepted part of the “responsibility” for a poor showing in the World Cup, but suggested the situation had only worsened since then.

“First we need to look at which players had been chosen in the past,” he said. “Sometimes you pick young players and then later, these players are dropped and fresh players are brought in. When fresh players are brought in, it takes them a while to succeed, and the players you had been investing in are ignored. That is what happened there.”

Jayasuriya did not specify which players he believes should have been given a consistent run in the team. In the Test side, Kaushal Silva and Niroshan Dickwella fell out of favour during Wijegunawardene’s tenure, while legspinning allrounder Seekkuge Prasanna was largely left out of the limited-overs teams.

However, Wijegunawardene’s committee had also handed debuts to players such as Milinda Siriwardana, Kusal Mendis, Dasun Shanaka and Dhananjaya de Silva, each of whom are currently in the Test squad Jayasuriya helped pick.

“When a new selection committee comes, they should talk with the old committee and discuss the good things that we did. If we did good things for Sri Lankan cricket, those policies should be taken forward. That must not have happened at the time, for us to be in this position.”

The Sri Lanka squad departs for the three-Test series in England, on Wednesday.