Jayasuria Glad To Show His Worth

Sri Lanka opener Sanath Jayasuriya feels he has proved the selectors who forced him into Test retirement wrong. The 38-year-old bowed out of the longer format in April 2006 only to return a few weeks later under a new regime.

“I was disappointed the way they asked me for a letter of resignation within 24 hours,” Jayasuriya said. “It wasn’t nice. It is the way things happen in this part of the world but I proved myself a better player. I have played very well in the second spell,” he added.

Left-hander Jayasuriya announced his Test retirement after scoring 6,613 runs in 102 Tests but when Asantha De Mel replaced Lalith Kaluperuma as chairman of selectors, he was brought back into the fold for the third match of the series in Nottingham.

In the five Tests since coming back, he has scored 178 runs, while he has made 1,483 in 38 One-day Internationals (ODIs) including 467 at the World Cup, where Sri Lanka reached the final.

“Apart from the World Cup-winning 1996 performance, the last two years has been the best time in my career,” he continued.

Jayasuriya, who also bowls left-arm spin, became the first man to take 300 wickets and reach 10,000 runs in ODIs when he claimed 4-31 in Monday’s victory over Bangladesh in Colombo.

The Matara-born star says after “working hard” to earn his place in the Sri Lanka team, he is proud of his record and has no plans to quit the international scene soon with the World Twenty20 coming up in September.

“It wasn’t very easy. I played very hard and sacrificed a lot to achieve what I earned so far,” he added. “After the World Cup I knew that I don’t have a long way to go but for the moment, my focus is to perform well in the next tournament,” he further added.