Mahela Jayawardene needs no introduction in International cricket, having scored more than 11,000 runs in both tests and ODIs.Recently , he became only the second player after Sachin Tendulkar to play 600 international matches.But with form and age against him, it seems that the time is up for this legend and he should now retire from International cricket.
With just two test century under his belt in the last 2 years, there is nothing more to say about how he has performed in the recent past.His ODI form has also not been satisfactory either. His struggle multiplies against the left arm spinners,after he has been dismissed 7 times by them in his past 11 innings. Also, his fitness has been an issue recently after he missed months of International cricket due to injury.Of late he has been a liability to the team , creating pressure for the inexperienced lower middle order.His struggle to build a good platform for the likes of Perera, Matthews and Senenayake has forced the Lankans to shuffle the lower middle order.
Sri Lankan management has never been reluctant to remove their senior players when they are out of form.The likes of Jayasuriya and Attapattu are some notable examples. But the problem now is that there is no one coming up among the younger players who can fill his shoes.The likes of Chamara Silva, Kapugedara,Kandambi have all been given a long run but failed to impress.So another option for Srilanka can be to ask Jayawardane to open again, a position where he had a decent success.Another advantage will be that he will have to face the faster bowlers more than the spinners.He can go after the bowlers in the powerplay along with Dilshan, something which brought huge amount of success to them in VB series in 2011-12.
There is a saying that “Form is temporary but class is permanent”, but it applies more to the younger players who are trying to establish themselves, so that they can be an asset in the future.It is sad but one has to admit that Jayawardane is looking out of sorts and he must say a goodbye to the game.
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