Muttiah Muralitharan calls for Lankan management to nurture younger players

Former Sri Lankan off-spinning legend Muttiah Muralitharan may be sporting the track suit of the Australian Cricket team at the moment, but, his heart, as well as his loyalty, will forever remain with Sri Lanka and it’s cricket team. Prior to the start of the second Test match at Galle, Muralitharan said that it was important for the Sri Lankan cricket board to nurture the talent that they already possessed. The youngsters in the Lankan side at the moment are performing exceedingly well with Kusal Mendis smashing a well-deserved century and Lakshan Sandakan also playing a key role in the victory. Muralitharan, who is a member of the Australia squad’s tour coaching staff, has been involved in a war of words with Sri Lanka’s board, bitter that his old employers have not sought out his advice themselves.

“There’s no doubt about the talent we have. Those two young guys have bright futures ahead of them,” Muralitharan said. “But the thing is we need to nurture them.”

To highlight the point he was attempting to make, Muralitharan took the example of Ajantha Mendis. “Look at what happened to Ajantha Mendis. He took a truckload of wickets at the start. But when he went through a couple of lean series, he was put under pressure and then went into a defensive mindset,” he said. “Today he is nowhere.”

“He [Ranatunga] was great in spotting talent and then guiding them,” Muralitharan said. “He backed players even when they failed repeatedly. Then they repaid his faith big time. All the players who came into the national side when he was captain went on to have long and successful careers.”

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Speaking about the chances of the Australians, the 43-year old said that these were alien conditions for the Aussies. “The Australians are not good at playing in these conditions and that’s why they hired me,” he said.

“They play 80 percent of their cricket on fast and bouncy surfaces and it’s only natural that they will struggle in conditions like these.” Australia’s players and management have praised Muralitharan’s efforts to help the likes of off-spinner Nathan Lyon but he acknowledged he could only do so much. “Simply because I coach, they can’t win. It’s a process and you need to master that process over a long period of time,” he said.

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