Sri Lanka’s National Team’s consultant coach Mahela Jayawardene left U19 side soon After Quarter Final Defeat in the ongoing ICC Youth World Cup in West Indies, Cricket Age reliably learns.
Afghanistan’s U-19 team created a huge upset on Thursday as they beat Sri Lanka by 4 runs to enter the semi-final of the U-19 ICC World Cup. It was a dramatic finish to a low scoring match as Afghanistan managed to defend a meagre score of 134 runs. Sri Lanka got to within five runs of victory, but their fourth run-out of the innings cost Mathew the final wicket and gave Afghanistan a dramatic victory.
As world cup winning dreams shattered, now Sri Lanka aims to salvage pride by better the performance in the play off. In the first match, Sri Lanka yesterday defeated South Africa by 65 runs to advance to the 5th place play off, while one match is still left.
However, Mahela left the team soon after defeat against Afghanistan.
Interestingly, SLC’s ever clueless CEO Ashely De Silva last month said that Mahela would be with the team during the entire tournament.
“Mahela will be with the Sri Lanka U19 team during the entire tournament. He will leave the island on January 9th and will remain with the team during the entire competition,” Ashely said in reply to a query by a local news paper on January 4.
However, as Mahela is beyond SLC jurisdiction or reach, he decided otherwise, while feeling no need to stay with the team, even though the campaign is yet to finish. Notably, Mahela had left the Sri Lanka’s national team’s midway through in the same manner during the recently concluded T20 World Cup as well.
