WZRD
Sri Lanka’s most celebrated white ball fast bowler Lasith Malinga has said that he is staying at home because he cannot complete the 2 km run fitness test which has become mandatory to be eligible for national cricket selection, but he can still bowl 24 balls and bowl for two hours without an issue.
“It’s not about the T20 World Cup, I’m not going to retire. I can still bowl 24 balls,” Malinga said while participating as a guest in internationally renowned cricket commentator Russel Arnold’s ‘Chilling with Russel’ YouTube Talk Show on Saturday and, at the same time hinting about his cricket future…
The world’s best T20 bowler can’t make it in to this shit Sri Lankan side because of a 2 km running test? We have to qualify for T20 World Cup right?
Great player but not a good role model. He is the first player from Sri Lanka who had given up playing for his country in test cricket to play T20 leagues. When someone trying to improve the team’s fitness by introducing fitness rules as a senior plater he does not support it.
He didn’t give up playing test cricket to play T20s. That is false. He had a knee injury and couldn’t bowl long spells and play five straight days. Same knee injury kept him out of cricket for over one year and SLC did not even give him a contract during that time or care about him.
He play under 10 test matches per year that is an issue for him, but playing T20 leagues all around the world that is not an issue? In a test match he can opt to bowl shorter spells and even he could have select playing few test matches. These are all false excuses by him to play for money
Hard to argue with probably the greatest white ball bowler in the world and he has a point in bringing in a new fitness regime with no time to adjust but here’s the point. No matter how great you are, when you start telling your employer how he must run his affairs you have lost the plot! It’s this sort of holier than thou attitude that has got SL to the bottom of the pile.
Another way of looking at this is if you are paid thousands of dollars to represent your Country and compete at the highest level with international athletes and you still have an issue in completing a 2 KM run then I am afraid the problem is with you.
He last played in March 2020 right?? Not very long ago. Should have been in the T20 side for this England series.