Former Sri Lanka captain Tillekeratne Dilshan who retired rather prematurely after the 2015 World Cup claims that before Sports Minister Roshan Ranasinghe was sacked he was a victim of his own progress and the results are clearly visible today.
The onetime swashbuckling stroke-maker contends that if only his plans for the future of the team were allowed to blossom, Sri Lanka would not have returned disgraced from last month’s World Cup in India.
Dilshan revealed his plan to introduce young blood into the team went against him when he was appointed as the new captain in 2011.
“My plan was to retire as a player not in 2015 but after the 2019 World Cup and by that time according to what I targeted as a captain (in 2011), Angelo Mathews would have been the captain today with a team of players who should have been groomed after 2019,” said Dilshan in an interview with a local television station.
Dilshan said his decision to retire early was forced on him by people he did not wish to name but it was loud and clear he was referring to the corrupt system found at the sport’s governing body Sri Lanka Cricket.
“I thought staying on will put me on a confrontational course with certain people. And at that time I was on top of the ranks as (ODI) allrounder. But I quit and I am not the one guilty of what has happened to the team today,” said Dilshan.
He regretted that had he got the same kind of support that he gave other captains, a large number of young players would not have fallen by the way side and look elsewhere towards their future.
“As a player I gave the captains I played under a hundred percent, but when I captained I did not get that same kind of support.
My one desire as captain was to introduce young players and groom them with the future of the team in mind. But I faced problems, and in the end, I had to go home for doing the right thing like Roshan Ranasinghe”, said Dilshan.
