Mahela Jayawardene - A perfect Cricketer

If cricket is a team game than he is a complete team man , if a teams performance depends on its captain than he is a as clever a captain that every team demands ,if cricket is all about scoring runs than he had thousands of them to count ,if cricket is all about performing consistently than his long cricketing career answers your question.Cricket is blessed to have a student like Denagamage Praboth Mahela de Silva Jayawardene (Mahela Jayawardene) who had respected the game and played it with the defined set of rules of cricket.

Over 17 years in international cricket , more than 23 thousand runs under his belt ,50 international hundreds ,highest number of catches in ODI (204) -the stats says it all about the former Sri Lankan Captain who  had announced his retirement from Test cricket on 14 July 2014,which means another gem of a player became history in test cricket.

Mahela Jayawardene was among the Sri Lanka's most successful captains who had made me his admirer through his great cricketing mind . He has that gifted ability to switch his  game according to the format- be its ODI ,Tests or T20,thats the reason that he had not only scored runs in all the format but is among the rarest cricketers in this modern day competitive cricket on whom selection committee relied and elected as a captain in all the formats.In fact it is because of captaincy only he has been the first choice for captain for IPL teams as well. Always Cricket First is the principle which he had followed rigorously throughout his career   and hence was always available for Sri Lankan team whether it is for selection , for taking his team out from difficult situations or helping in the reformation of team .

15 May 2011 was the day when i got the opportunity to watch  this iconic cricketer live in action on cricketing field from stands. I really consider myself lucky that i got the opportunity to watch his captaincy ,watch his batting , watch his fielding,watch his team winning under his captaincy ,all live on ground.The memories of that day are still alive and would always be.

I wonder whether world cricket will have another nearly perfect cricketer ever who had achieved all the milestones with his fair play and inculcated the same in his team.

What a captain , what a player ,actually a perfect cricketer.

Losing Is Dangerous In Cricket

“ There was a duck with two ducks behind it, a duck with 2 ducks ahead of it, and a duck with a duck ahead and a duck behind”..defines the Indian innings debacle in recent India Vs England test series.

So I was actually right when I mentioned after the retirement of test match specialists  Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman that ,if we had to measure what impact it will have on team India ,than just reduce two days in any test match featuring India.

And here  we are ,maximum test matches in which India plays ends in three days .Yes, India is not even able to play for the full quota of five days ,since the retirement of two greats , forget about the result. Two successive tours of England both away and home ,India faced humiliating defeat and straight away goes the radar on all the non performing players of India. Each defeat brings out the statistics of your failures which have a far bad impact than the ones which comes out when you perform well.

Whether it’s Mahendra Singh Dhoni -  India’s most successful captain who had won coveted titles for India through its unorthodox captaincy and was cynosure of every Indian or Virat Kohli - the emerging superstar of India who  had proved his mantle in all the formats of cricket through his consistence performance ,defeat in recent test series with England had put a question mark on their capabilities.

A defeat raises all the points which are being covered under the shadows of win and actually doesn’t matter as long as team is winning. But same points become critical issues or matters to look for if they are not working your way. Some people blame it on IPL ,some on lack of practice , some on lack of experience ,some on lack of skills ,some on lack of international exposure and they all can prove themselves right as long as you are losing.

Winning is a continuous process while losing is not. Its true that Indian team is like Rafael Nadal, Champion on clay, struggles on grass.The need of the hour for the world champions India is  to live their game and lift their team. Rather than playing the blaming game they should focus on what next ,and what they can do from here and can at least play to their potential on grass.