I don't want to leave the team and go: Upul Tharanga

It sounds nothing short of a nightmare when as a captain you witness your team succumb to three 5-0 whitewashes in a year. Sri Lankan limited overs skipper Upul Tharanga is currently dealing with this face-smacking reality of Lankan cricket. But the 32-year-old refuses to drop the captain’s armband and takes the defeat on the chin.

Under Tharanga’s captaincy, Sri Lanka suffered a 5-0 loss to South Africa away in the absence of their regular skipper Angelo Mathews. The team then went on to lose 9-0 across all the three formats against India at home but the humiliation wasn’t over as they were handed another 5-0 defeat by a spirited Pakistan unit.

“It’s the responsibility of the selectors and the board. I don’t want to leave the team and go. The board will decide who will take the team forward,” Tharanga told journalists.

“As captain, I would like to take the blame for the defeats. The batsmen also need to take a fair share of the blame. We have to score as a team. Batsmen can fail two or three games, but not all five games. It’s tough when we don’t perform as a team,” Tharanga added.

Sri Lanka’s poor form continues

Sri Lanka have won just four out of their last 26 matches, with 12 defeats coming in a trot. Sri Lanka managed to go past the 200-mark only twice and that tells the story of their struggle against quality attack. “We repeated the same mistakes. In this game, we were four wickets down in the third over and there was no coming back from thereon. In the last 15 to 18 months, we have struggled with our batting and that has been the main reason why we have come up with below-par performances.”

“What is really disappointing is that these were not unplayable wickets. They were very good tracks. We were just not good enough. Today we tried to change the line-up a little by sending Niroshan Dickwella at number five as he is very good against spin, but we just lost too many wickets earlier on,” Tharanga added.