Sri Lanka's Lasith Malinga To Retire After World Cup Snub

Just before days the upcoming World Cup, Sri Lanka, on Wednesday, sacked Lasith Malinga as the captain of their ODI team. Sri Lanka’s national selectors appointed batsman Dimuth Karunaratne as captain of the ODI team. Sri Lanka had a disastrous tour of South Africa as far as their performances in limited-overs format is concerned. The Islanders lost the ODI series 0-5 and the T20I series 0-2. Karunaratne has not played an ODI since the 2015 World Cup but led Sri Lanka to a historic Test series win in South Africa.

Gutted with the turn of events,  Malinga has “almost decided” to bring down curtains on his illustrious international career. The veteran pacer made his intentions clear with a text message to a players’ group, according to Deccan Chronicle. The message was in Sinhalese which read:

“api bima naevata piyava gaeniata samat ve tanapativarayet. deviyan vaanse mata pitupasin ma sahaya kala siyalu denatama asirvada” (meaning “we won’t be able to meet again on the ground. God bless to everyone who was behind me and supporting me. Blessings”).

With Malinga now seemingly distraught after the setback, it looks likely he would not play the World Cup. The report claimed that Malinga had sent the message at 11.22 in the morning and that was exactly an hour after he had a call from the chief selector Ashantha de Mel. The chief selector asked Malinga about his availability without guaranteeing him about the captaincy. Perhaps this was the reason that made Malinga send that message.

“Not sure what he means but hints out of pulling out. Malinga should have known that playing for the country is more important than the captaincy,” a SLC source was quoted as saying by the news outlet. “He lost 13 out of 14 matches he captained”.

The Sri Lankan selectors are likely to name Malinga in the squad till he officially makes him unavailable. Sri Lanka are expected to name their squad on Thursday.