Hashan hasn't done enough says De Mel
by Sa'adi Thawfeeq
Sri Lanka's Chairman of Cricket Selectors Ashantha de
Mel shut the door on the face of veteran batsman Hashan Tillakaratne at
least for the tour to New Zealand when he said that the former captain
had not done enough to warrant selection.
"We have not shut the door completely on Hashan. We know
that he still has some cricket left in him. However his current
performances in the provincial tournament doesn't make a strong case for
us to include him in the team," said De Mel.
Tillakaratne averaged 40.20 with the bat in five innings
for Western Province totalling 201 and passed fifty only once making a
top score of 85 against Central Province.
"If Hashan wants to get in he will have to do better
than that. He will have to get the big numbers on the board. Getting 40s
and 50s will not help his cause," said De Mel.
When questioned whether age was a factor against
Tillakaratne's non-inclusion, De Mel said: "We are not worried about the
age of a player. If someone is fit and scores runs heavily we will
certainly consider him for selection. We know that Hashan has delivered
in the past. He needs is to convert his fifties into hundreds."
Tillakaratne was deposed as Test captain following Sri
Lanka's 0-3 defeats by Ricky Ponting's Australians last year. It was the
first home whitewash Sri Lanka suffered in their history as a Test
nation. Since then the dour left-hander has been trying hard to get into
the Test side without much success.
The national selection committee, which met on Monday,
overlooked the 37-year-old seasoned-campaigner of 83 Tests from a pool
of 18 players to begin preparations for the tour.
The pool however was not finalised due to a number of
injuries to some of the fast bowlers including Nuwan Zoysa who has been
ruled out of the tour with a knee injury. De Mel said that the selection
committee would meet today and decide whether they should go ahead and
finalise the pool or play a 2-day practice match before selection.
He denied reports that his committee has been
pressurised into including Tillakaratne in the pool.
"We are an independent committee and we take decisions
in the best interest of Sri Lanka cricket. If we are going to be
influenced by outside forces we should not be sitting in the committee,"
said De Mel. |
