Thursday, February 12, 2009

Loss to India not behind quitting: Mahela


Former Sri Lankan captain Mahela Jayawardene believes Kumara Sangakkara is the right choice to lead Sri Lanka in the lead up to the 2011 World Cup. A day after he stepped down Jayawardene spoke exclusively to CNN-IBN on Thursday.

On his successor
The obvious choice is my deputy (Kumar Sangakkara) but at the the end of the day the decision will be made by the selectors. Let's hope they make a wise decision.

On giving up captaincy
It's been in my mind for quite some time and I always knew that I won't go all the way to the next World Cup.

For me it was about the timing and giving it up at the right time so that the other guy has enough time to do whatever he wants with the team combinations or whatever for the World Cup.

So, it's purely a cricketing decision keeping in mind the future of Sri Lankan cricket as well as what I wanted to achieve as a cricketer in the future.

Whether series loss to India forced Jayawardene to quit
It was difficult when we lost to India. We are disappointed with the loss. They played some really good cricket and beat us. It had no impact whatsoever on my decision because I had been thinking about it for quite some time.

On achieving his goals as captain
I always wanted to give more freedom to the youngsters in the team and make sure that they work for themselves and to be better cricketers we need an environment like that.

For players to be individually dependent on themselves: to work harder for their success rather than waiting for somebody else to come and tell you to do something. Those are few things that I wanted to come into our team.

Source: http://cricketnext.in.com/news/loss-to-india-not-behind-quitting-mahela/38232-14.html

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