It's not you Thilan, it's those young'uns

It’s like this when every work project goes wrong. There are always the rumors about someone getting the finger pointed at them. You can smell it. You can sense it in an almost animalistic way.

Thilan Samaraweera has been let go. Without even so much as a reference letter.

We liked you Thilan. It’s not everyday that a cricketer can reinvent themselves midway through their career and become pretty fkn good at it. We watched you as you crawled your way to century upon century when you were reborn as a batsmen. And we loved it. We liked that we had someone we could actually depend on consistently for runs. We admired you for it.

At one point, we even smirked to ourselves as you had that not to secret love affair with the SSC right in front of Mahela's eyes.

Sometimes it sucks to be field expert. You get called in all the big projects and is expected to just slot in seamlessly. But no one asks you out for after work drinks. You get a good pat on the back for your work but you are never quite one of the ‘guys’.

When people said you were taking too long with your work , you worked out a way to get better at time management. And after reeling off 2 double hundreds for fun what did you do. You went and got shot

Yes, you got shot and you lived. That is bad ass. We thought you could have our baby. But you changed after that. You looked the same. Felt the same. But something just wasn’t right.

But you always dug in with that snarl on your face and was ready for a scrap. You were never pretty at what you did but that just made it more accessible. With Sanga and Mahela we knew they would outclass us. But with you, it was like you were us. An everyday man with just a desire to score runs however he could get it.

Now you are on the wrong side of 30 and looking a bit tired. And the graduate interns are all 2020fied and snapping at your heels

Maybe it’s time for you go. Maybe it isn’t. But we will miss you.

Go forth and spend your days being you for us.