Sanath Jayasuriya urges players to manage their workload better

Sanath Jayasuriya, Sri Lanka’s chief selector, on Thursday (July 7), concerned about the recurring fitness problems which hampered the team, has urged his players to take onus for the injuries they are suffering due to excessive cricket.

Sri Lanka just wrapped their England tour which featured four Test, five ODIs and one T20I. The team, which had won in all three formats the last time they were in England in 2014, could even manage a single victory this time around. They lost the three-match Test series 2-0, followed by a 3-0 loss in the five-match One-Day International (ODI) series and a defeat in the one-off Twenty20 International (T20I).

Injury problems kept some of the best players out of the field. The team was severely depleted with Dhammika Prasad, Dushmantha Chameera, Angelo Mathews and Milinda Siwiwardana suffering injuries at various points during the tour. Lasith Malinga and Jeffrey Vandersay were ruled out due to injuries even before the squad was named.

Mathews was fit enough to bat, but Siriwardana was forced to miss the third Test while Prasad and Chameera had to return home early from the tour.

Simon Willis, Sri Lanka’s new high-performance manager, had assessed the situation and said injuries could be dealt with better if squads were named early and conditioning work undertaken before the tours begin. While Jayasuriya agreed with Willis’s assessment, he was quick to add that the players themselves have a responsibility of managing their fitness better.

“Simon Willis is right in one sense, but my concern is that injuries have been happening for some time. We also need the commitment from the players. You can’t deny that also. I’m saying that in front of the players. They have to come out of their comfort zone and train,” Jayasuriya said.

“No matter how much myself, Simon and Sri Lanka Cricket are committed, if the player isn’t committed, you can’t do it. I’m not saying they are not committed – they are committed – but they need to do something different to come out and solve this issue.”

The bowling attack, especially in the ODIs, was ineffective. They allowed England to chase down totals in excess of 300s rather easily.

“If we can get the same players playing through a series, there will be a difference,” Jayasuriya said. “Unlike when the tour started, by their fourth innings in the Tests, the batsmen were able to score 475. That’s because the same batting unit stayed together. But the bowlers break down from match to match. If we can stop that, we can get to a good place.

“In the end, only Nuwan Pradeep and Suranga Lakmal were left from the bowlers who started the tour, and even Lakmal, in the last match, had a knee injury.”

As a solution, Jayasuriya suggested that players should carefully pick the tours they want to play in, in order to manage their workload better.

“There could be a lot of cricket for sure. Then you have to pick the tour and say: ‘I will be playing on this particular tour’. If there’s too much cricket, then the player has to say: ‘I’m not going to last long’, and stay out. Then we can think of something else,” Jayasuriya said.

Angelo Mathews echoed Jayasuriya’s thoughts on fitness as well and hoped for an improvement on all fronts ahead of their home series against Australia, which he labelled as a ‘tough challenge’.

“Fitness was a big issue, as the captain, I am disappointed with our batting, bowling and fielding,” Mathews said. “We have to improve in all departments. It (the series against Australia) is in our home conditions, but we have to prepare well and prepare for a tough challenge, and to overcome the tough Australia side we have to play our best cricket.”