Lasith Malinga likely to be dropped from Sri Lankan squad for Bangladesh tour

Sri Lanka Cricket is likely to drop Lasith Malinga from the national squad to tour Bangladesh.

Colombo: Jan 2, 2013

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) is likely to drop pacer Lasith Malinga from the national squad to tour Bangladesh as a means of sending a strong signal to the star bowler over his indifferent attitude towards training and poor performance.

Following Sri Lanka‘s 2-3 loss in the recent One-Day International (ODI) series against Pakistan in the UAE, the SLC officials had felt that the team’s performance was extremely below par.

The sources told Daily Mirror that a lot of changes could be made in the team by infusing new players into the system through a gradual rotation system of resting seniors and trying out new talents in their place.

“Malinga’s pathetic bowling and fielding had been a main topic of concern and SLC President Jayantha Dharmadasa had reportedly communicated the decisions taken in consultation with the national selectors to the national team members and support staff,” the newspaper was quoted as saying.

Malinga reportedly missed most of the fitness regimes citing knee injury and had also refused to look for other methods of fitness.

Malinga, who is currently playing in the Australian Big Bash T20, took only six wickets in five ODIs against Pakistan with an economy rate of more than six runs per over. He went wicket-less in two games despite bowling his full quota of 10 overs.

Sri Lanka are scheduled to tour Bangladesh at the end of this month for two Tests and two Twenty20 Internationals.

The paper speculated that even some of the senior coaching staff might come in SLC’s firing line.

“What can you say about Sri Lanka’s batting and fielding performance? Who is responsible if the team fails? What is the point of having all these coaches, paying them huge salaries if they can’t do their job properly?,” said a source in SLC.

“It is time that SLC takes these people to task. All this time, they were enjoying big perks and having an easy time. Now they will be required to prove themselves. If not, SLC will not hesitate to show them the door,” he added.