Sanath Jayasuriya looks back on his captaincy

Sanath Jayasuriya

When the national selectors appointed Sanath Jayasuriya as the Sri Lankan captain ahead of senior players such as Aravinda de Silva, Roshan Mahanama and Hashan Tillakratne, there were some who had reservations about the decision. Today, however, nearly two years on, most of those critics will have been even silenced.

But if you ask the modest man from the coastal town of Matara whether he ever dreamt of becoming the national captain, he'll give you that familiar broad smile and tell you modestly that he never dreamt of becoming the captain of his country; all what he wanted was to represent Sri Lanka at the highest level.

"You can dream to play for your country, but you can't dream to become the captain," said Jayasuriya. "You need a bit of luck. But I tell you, I never dreamt of captaining the country."

Jayasuriya was handed the captaincy at a crucial stage. Sri Lanka played poorly in the 1999 World Cup in England and the selectors decided to sack Arjuna Ranatunga, a hugely respected figure and the captain when Jayasuriya made his international debut.

Jayasuriya admits to feeling "a bit frightened" when he was first given the job. "The question I asked myself was whether I can do this job," he reveals. "I had played cricket at that time for about 10 years, but Arjuna was captaining for 14 years and lot of senior players were around that time. I was thinking about lot of things, but in the end I thought to myself: I have played enough international cricket and I can do this job."

Looking back at the two years since, Jayasuriya says: "The first year was the toughest. It was not easy because Sri Lankan cricket was in a bad shape: we had lost the World Cup and straight after that they had changed the captaincy."

"When I got the job I asked the boys for their fullest support. I told them: 'we have to play as a team' and asked for their support since I had never done the job before. When the players support you it makes your work much easier."

Jayasuriya started off well by beating Australia, the world champions, in a three-match test series at home. He then went from strength-to-strength, beating both Zimbabwe and Pakistan away from home. Since then, however, Sri Lanka has not recorded a test series victory, losing to Pakistan and England at home and in South Africa.

The side lost games from winning positions. Against South Africa and England the side recorded innings victories in the first tests, both of which were played in Galle, only for the tourists to bounce back in Kandy.

Jayasuriya believes that the fault for this lies at the feet of the batsmen: "The batsman didn't score enough runs. You need batsman to put a minimum of 350 to 400 runs on the board. When they don't it's very difficult for the bowlers to bowl. Basically the batsman didn't perform well enough, although luck didn't favour us much either."

However Jayasuriya's side has performed admirably in the shorter version of the game. In the new captains very first assignment, the Aiwa Cup, Sri Lanka defeated India and the mighty Australians. They then defeated Zimbabwe and Pakistan convincingly away from home, New Zealand away, England at home, and have won three of their last four triangular tournaments. The only set back in the shorter version was the recent 5-1 thrashing by the hands of Proteas and an early exit from the ICC KnockOut last October.

"If you take a look at our performances you can obviously see that we have done well in one-day cricket," he said. "But the team is keen to do well in test cricket as well and want to be a better team than we are at the moment. I am particularly disappointed about the last test series against England, which we should have won easily."

Jayasuriya says he concentrates on each series as they come and feels pretty confident about the 2003 World Cup, although historically Sri Lanka have not done well on South African soil. He hopes certain recent moves by the Interim Committee will help his side to do better this time around.

"We have planned few things: we are preparing fast practice tracks at Premadasa Stadium and we are also trying to bring down some experts like Barry Richards, to get some tips. He has come here earlier, and I hope that will help us," says Jayasuriya.

He warns his critics to not write him off yet. The proud winner of the most valuable player award of the 1996 World Cup is looking forward to another chance to grab the limelight, this time as the leader.