Category Archives: Angelo Mathews

August 18, 2020 · 12:22 pm

“A Sri Lankan XI To Die For in My Time” — THILAN

Mohamed Isam with Thilan Samaraweera, in ESPNcricinfo and its CRICKET MONTHLY, August 2020, where the title is “My Best XI: The Lords of Sri Lanka’s Golden Age”

Thilan SamarawThe lords of Sri Lanka’s golden age”eera, who played 81 Tests with 12 centuries and two double-hundreds, was one of Sri Lanka’s middle-order mainstays. In a career spanning 12 years, he played alongside two generations of his country’s finest cricketers in five-day cricket – from among whom he picks an all-time XI.

Jayawardene, Sangakarra, Atapattu: that’s just short of 30,000 Test runs right there

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February 27, 2020 · 3:04 pm

Andrew Fernando dissects the Contest at Sooriyawewa

Andrew Fidel Fernando, in ESPNcricinfo 26 February 2020

Sri Lanka 345 for 8 (Fernando 127, Mendis 119, Cottrell 4-67, Joseph 3-57) beat West Indies 184 (Hope 51, Hasaranga 3-30, Sandakan 3-57) by 161 runs

Kusal Mendis and Avishka Fernando dovetailed beautifully through the middle overs, producing an effortless 239-run third-wicket partnership that became the bedrock of Sri Lanka’s 345 for 8, and by extension, their series-sealing 161-run victory over West Indies. Mendis hit a run-a-ball 119 and Fernando made 127 off 123 deliveries, as they punished West Indies’ indiscipline with the ball and sloppiness in the field, rescuing Sri Lanka from a scoreline of 9 for 2 in the third over.

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February 26, 2020 · 10:33 pm

Marvellous Mathews …. Fielding Marvels at Sooriyawewa

SW Ambris ….. run out (Mathews/Udana) 17

12.2 sensational fielding, and a run out breaks the partnership. I think this one is on Shai Hope. He clips this one square of midwicket and he thought he had beaten Angelo Mathews, but Mathews leaps to his right and cuts that one off. Hope has called Ambris through for a single, but seeing suddenly that Mathews has the ball in hand, he changes his mind. Only, Ambris is two thirds down the pitch now. Hope scampers back to the striker’s end, and Ambris is nowhere as the throw comes in from Mathews, and the bowler Udana takes the bails off. Hope might even had made it had he committed to the run. 64/1

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February 21, 2020 · 2:54 pm

‘Trigger Movements’ and ‘Split-Step’ to spark Sri Lankans in Windies Matches

Andrew Fidel Fernando talks to Mickey Arthur, ESPNcricinfo, 21 February 2020 – where the title is “

On Wednesday, ahead of his first ODI series as Sri Lanka coach Mickey Arthur spoke about players being handed down well-defined roles within the team. On Friday, on the eve of the first one-dayer against West Indies, he went into a little more detail about what those roles were.

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Filed under Andrew Fidel Fernando, Angelo Mathews, cricket and life, performance, player selections, spinning art, Sri Lanka Cricket, unusual people, West Indian Cricket

February 20, 2020 · 2:42 pm

Confronting the Windies in ODIs at Home

Michael Roberts

Sri Lanka play three 50-over ODIs against the West Indies over the next few days, one at the SSC this coming Saturday 22^nd February, the second at Hambantota on Monday the 24th and the third at Pallekeley on the 1^st March. With Danushka Gunathilake injured, Shehan Jayasuriya has been added to the squad of 15 (see below for details).

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February 5, 2020 · 3:12 am

The Kusal Perera Saga: Ashantha’s Comprehensive Dissection

Sa’adi Thawfeeq in Daily News 5 February 2020, with this title “The Kusal Perera saga”

Many opinions has been expressed and many words written on the exclusion of Kusal Perera from the Test squad to Zimbabwe. Perera as you may remember played one of the greatest match-winning innings in Test cricket against South Africa guiding his team to an epic one-wicket win at Durban hitting an unbeaten 153 as Sri Lanka chased down 304.

But since then Perera’s scores in Test cricket have been 20, 1, 23, 0 and 0. However the selectors persisted with him and took him to Pakistan but with the return of Angelo Mathews and Dinesh Chandimal both of whom missed the South African series, he lost his place in the Test team and was pushed to the rank of reserves.

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February 3, 2020 · 3:28 pm

Kusal Mendis: Near a Milestone despite Recent Pitfalls

Rex Clementine, in Sunday Island, 2 February 2020, where the title is “Mendis on the verge of crucial milestone”

Young Kusal Mendis, who turned 25 today (Sunday) is on the brink of a crucial milestone. He is just five runs short to complete 3000 Test runs, a feat achieved by only 13 other Sri Lankans. He will also become the second youngest Sri Lankan to reach the milestone when England visit the island later next month. Mahela Jayawardene, who achieved the landmark at the age of 24 is the youngest and quickest Sri Lankan to get there (65 innings). If Kusal keeps his appetite for big runs like Mahela, there is little doubt that he would join the 10,000 club of which Mahela and Kumar Sangakkara are members.

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January 25, 2020 · 2:13 am

That Triumph in Zimbabwe: Mickey Arthur pleased

Bipin Dani, at https://www.bdcrictime.com/sl-coach-mickey-arthur-happy-with-team-performance/

According to the highly placed sources in Zimbabwe, the team management is considering to persist with the same eleven for the second Test commencing at the same venue on Monday.
“Though the second Test is to be played on a different wicket, we are “most likely” to retain the same eleven”, a member of the support staff said.

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January 6, 2020 · 1:14 pm

Angelo Mathews talks to Rex about the Immediate Tasks in 2020

Rex Clementine in Island, 4 January 2020, where the title is “Mathews Ready for Reversed Role”

When Angelo Mathews limped off the field in Indore with a hamstring injury during Sri Lanka’s tour of India in 2017, the recovery took months. At that point, the selectors made a call that in a bid to prolong his career, Mathews will only play as a batsman. But 18 months later, the decision has been reversed. Mathews was dropped from the T-20 squad in August 2018 and was told to get back to bowling in order to regain his place. Having fulfilled the requirement, the 32-year-old is back in India, the country where he won the admiration of adoring fans a decade ago.

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December 8, 2019 · 2:38 pm

Sri Lanka enters the Pakistani Cricketing Den

ONE = Shenai Anushka, in Sunday Times, 8 December 2019, where the title reads thus – “Sri Lanka’s gruelling test in ‘unknown’ Pakistan’

Sri Lanka’s full-strength Test team will embark on a significant tour of Pakistan today to play two matches as part of the ICC World Test Championship. Pakistan has not hosted Test cricket since the 2009 Lahore attack on the Sri Lanka team that wounded several players, staff members and killed a few security officers. The series was initially scheduled to be played in October with the most likely venue to be the UAE. However after successfully hosting the second-string Sri Lanka team in the limited-overs leg in August and September, they forced Sri Lanka Cricket to play the Test series in Pakistan.