COLOMBO: There was little joy for
Lasith Malinga despite claiming his 300th wicket in ODIs at the R Premadasa stadium here on Thursday.
He dismissed India skipper
Virat Kohli to enter the elite '300 Club' which also features
Muttiah Muralitharan (534),
Wasim Akram (502),
Waqar Younis (416),
Chaminda Vaas (400),
Shahid Afridi (395), Shaun Pollock (393), Glenn McGrath (381),
Brett Lee (380),
Anil Kumble (337), Sanath Jayasuriya (323), Javagal Srinath (315) and Daniel Vettori (305).
However, in spite of the landmark, Malinga went for 82 runs off his 10 overs as Sri Lanka lost the fourth One-Dayer by a massive 168 runs. So, despondent was Sri Lanka's stand-in skipper that he vowed to assess his future in international cricket at the end of the current series against India.
"I'm playing after 19 months following a leg injury.I couldn't do well against Zimbabwe and India. I'll see where I'm at after this series and evaluate how long I can play on given the way my body is," he said at the post-match press conference on Thursday.
"No matter how experienced I am, if I can't win a match for the team -that's what the team needs -there's no point in I being here. I'll see if I can regain my form over the next three or four months," he added.
"I'll have to consider the state of my body, and what is expected of me. If I can't deliver that, then I'll happily retire," the 34-year-old said.
He agreed that Lankan bowlers were not up to the mark on Thursday. "Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma played really well. But we didn't bowl a good line and length. On this kind of wicket, hitting the right length was crucial," he reasoned.
"We tried to get the ball to swing, seeing some grass on the wicket and bowled full length deliveries. That didn't work. It's a learning process for the young players," he added.
A veteran of 203 ODI matches, Malinga harped on experience. "We lost a generation of experienced players.It's hard to expect fresh out-of-school or club cricketers to fill that void," he said.
However, the Galle pacer is confident that given more time the youngsters will come good. "As we are losing, the general thinking is that those who are in the team are bad and others deserve a place. But if we keep criticising everyone, we will not get a settled unit. We have to be patient with the players we have," he said.
"We need players with 3050 ODIs under their belts when we go for the next World Cup. That experience will come in handy," he added.
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