Veteran Sri Lanka all-rounder Angelo Mathews reflected on a tough 2024 T20 World Cup, which his team will exit after Sunday’s final group-stage fixture against the Netherlands in St Lucia. The 2014 champions lost to South Africa on a tough pitch in New York and then fell to continental rivals Bangladesh in a low-scoring thriller in Dallas. Their other fixture against Nepal was washed out, effectively eliminating them from the race to the Super 8s with a match to be played.
Citing the turn of events as unexpected, Mathews said: “I think first of all we’ve let the entire nation down and we are really sorry because we’ve let ourselves down. We never expected this. I mean, we came across a lot of challenges but those are not something to sort of worry about, but it’s unfortunate that we didn’t make the second round,” Mathews said on the eve of the Netherlands game.
“We have just one more game in the tournament, and we’ll play for our pride. And we haven’t done justice to ourselves, especially the way we played in the first two games. So, it’s very unfortunate, we are heartbroken and we are hurting so much within ourselves.
Coming into the tournament, Sri Lanka were on a decent run of form having defeated Afghanistan at home and Bangladesh away in bilateral series’. With quite a few of their players having featured in the IPL, they would have hoped for a better showing than a first round exit.
“That’s something that we regret because the way we played Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, and Bangladesh in Bangladesh, I thought we didn’t do justice for our capabilities in this tournament. I mean, as you say, when you come into a World Cup, you can’t take any team lightly but unfortunately the way we played against those teams just before the World Cup and then once we came back here and the way we played… obviously the wickets were quite different but we didn’t do justice to ourselves.”
One of the ‘challenges’ that Mathews touched upon was the recurring theme of scheduling. Echoing teammate Maheesh Theekshana’s earlier criticism of the itinerary which saw Sri Lanka being one of only two teams – Netherlands the other – to play in four different venues, Mathews said he’d never had to travel as much in any previous World Cups.
“We are very frustrated as I mentioned earlier a few times. I think in my career, we have never travelled this much for a world cup. It’s not an excuse, but it is about the reality. I think that only Sri Lanka and the Dutch team played the four matches of this tournament in four different locations. As I said before it’s not an excuse, but in my career, this is the most travelled World Cup in history. But as I said before, we were not able to achieve our hope as a team or as a country. I’m very sorry about it.”
Mathews, who turned 37 at the start of the tournament, was non-committal on his white-ball future and said any decision would be made after understanding the national selectors’ ideas regarding the future of the team. “It’s like this, I play every match thinking it’s my last match. Because everything is uncertain, even our life is,” Mathews said.
“So, I try my best to do [well] in every match for my team. I have no high hopes about playing the next match or the next tournament. So, there is some more time, so there will be some things to be concerned about, but until now I have nothing planned from my side. We just need the selectors opinion in the future, before my opinions. So, as I mentioned, I play this game, as I love the sport. Even if it’s the national team or a club team, I play with that love and the bond. As I mentioned earlier, I always think that’s my last game.”
