{"id":28636,"date":"2014-03-09T16:59:01","date_gmt":"2014-03-09T21:59:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=28636"},"modified":"2014-03-09T16:59:01","modified_gmt":"2014-03-09T21:59:01","slug":"amazing-lahiru-thirimanne-may-become-kumar-sangakkaras-replacement-in-the-long-termopines-skipper-angelo-mathews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=28636","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Amazing Lahiru Thirimanne may Become Kumar Sangakkara&#8217;s Replacement in the Long Term&#8221;Opines Skipper Angelo Mathews."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><br \/>\nAfter missing most of Sri Lanka\u2019s series against Bangladesh with an ankle injury, Lahiru Thirimanne returned to the side ahead of the Asia Cup. After he scored a century in the final to help his team achieve a five-wicket win, Sri Lanka\u2019s captain Angelo Mathews said Thirimanne had batted with a &#8220;bit of a niggle&#8221; in their last two games.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He [Thirimanne] has been amazing for us,&#8221; Mathews said. &#8220;He got injured, unfortunately, in the last series but he came back for us. He had a little bit of a niggle still, while he was batting, in the last two games, and he was very courageous to come out and play, the way he did.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;[I am] very happy, because you push him up the order, you push him down the order, he\u2019s one of those players who never get a chance at one spot. And wherever he gets the opportunity he scores runs for us. And that\u2019s a team player for me, and he did amazing for us, and he\u2019s a great find for us.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Mathews agreed when asked if Thirimanne was in line to become Kumar Sangakkara\u2019s long-term replacement in the Sri Lanka side.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Yeah, after Sangakkara, Mahela [Jayawardene] retire, Thirimanne, [Dinesh] Chandimal are the ones who are going to take their reins. It is not easy to fill their shoes, but the way they are performing right now, I\u2019m pretty sure they\u2019ll take responsibility in the future.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>After his century in the final, Thirimanne\u2019s average in the top three rose to 49.08 in 14 innings. At No. 4 or lower, he averages 22.80 in 33 innings.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We\u2019ve got to see how it goes,&#8221; Mathews said, when asked if Thirimanne would retain his role as opener in the near future. &#8220;He opened the batting because [Tillakaratne] Dilshan got injured in the Bangladesh series. As I said before, he\u2019s one of those players, you give him the opportunity, wherever you bat him, he will score runs for us. We still haven\u2019t thought about where he\u2019s going to bat, but definitely he\u2019s been a find for us this tournament.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Lasith Malinga was Sri Lanka\u2019s other hero of the day, taking all five wickets that fell during Pakistan\u2019s innings. He was returning to the side after sitting out the match against Bangladesh.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Really happy that he rested against Bangladesh,&#8221; Mathews said. &#8220;It\u2019s not easy to play consistently, especially for the fast bowlers [who] especially tire out so much. We don\u2019t have a lot of time in between [matches] so it\u2019s always useful to manage the fast bowlers, especially their workloads, and we saved him for the final. He got a five-for in the first game against Pakistan, and also another five-for today, so he\u2019s been performing tremendously for us and he\u2019s been our premier bowler for so many years.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>COURTESY:THE ISLAND<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"tweetbutton28636\" class=\"tw_button\" style=\"float:right;margin-left:10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdbsjeyaraj.com%2Fdbsj%2F%3Fp%3D28636&amp;text=%26%238220%3BAmazing%20Lahiru%20Thirimanne%20may%20Become%20Kumar%20Sangakkara%26%238217%3Bs%20Replacement%20in%20the%20Long%20Term%26%238221%3BOpines...%20&amp;related=&amp;lang=en&amp;count=horizontal\" class=\"twitter-share-button\"  style=\"width:55px;height:22px;background:transparent url('https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-tweet-button\/tweetn.png') no-repeat  0 0;text-align:left;text-indent:-9999px;display:block;\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After missing most of Sri Lanka\u2019s series against Bangladesh with an ankle injury, Lahiru Thirimanne returned to the side ahead of the Asia Cup. After he scored a century in the final to help his team achieve a five-wicket win, Sri Lanka\u2019s captain Angelo Mathews said Thirimanne had batted with a &#8220;bit of a niggle&#8221; &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=28636\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading &lsquo;&#8220;Amazing Lahiru Thirimanne may Become Kumar Sangakkara&#8217;s Replacement in the Long Term&#8221;Opines Skipper Angelo Mathews.&rsquo; &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28636"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28636"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28637,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28636\/revisions\/28637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}