by Rex Clementine

These days, the trend seems to be that every Sri Lankan cricketer wants to be captain. After barely spending three years representing Sri Lanka, players tend to think that they are eligible to become captain. Being Sri Lanka’s captain seems to be the crown jewel in the sport at present. In the last T-20 Sri Lanka played, against Bangladesh in March, apart from captain Wanindu Hasaranga, there were five other players who had already captained Sri Lanka. However, time was when natural succession was the rule of the day.

Sri Lanka were in England in 2011 and with captain T.M. Dilshan injured and out of the third Test at Rose Bowl, the captaincy was offered to Tilan Samaraweera. In over 40 years of Test cricket, less than 20 men have captained the nation in Tests but Tilan turned down the ultimate honour.

“There was no vice-captain named before the team departed to England. Suddenly when the captain was injured it was offered to me. I wasn’t interested. I had captained Sri Lanka ‘A’ and SSC, but when it comes to the national team there was a natural line of succession. We knew when Sanath (Jayasuriya) was captain, next in line was Marvan (Atapattu) followed by Mahela (Jayawardene) and Kumar (Sangakkara). Being contemporaries with Kumar and Mahela, I had no chance to captain Sri Lanka, My time was over. I am fine with it,” Samaraweera told The Island.

The dynamics of Sri Lankan cricket was such at that time that a vice-captain may have not been named deliberately as the administration was content with ‘divide and rule’ policy.

Having played alongside Sanga and MJ, Tilan’s numbers often do not get the accolades they deserve. In 81 Tests he scored over 5400 runs at an average of 48 and he retired as nation’s sixth highest run scorer in Test match cricket.

Late Michael de Zoysa (bless him) doesn’t often get credit to his contributions to the game but Tilan has an interesting story. Having started as an off-spinner Tilan wasn’t going to make massive progress but he was given a break at SSC by de Zoysa.

“I was batting at number seven for SSC and Michael called me up and said now that Arjuna Ranatunga is retired, we want you to bat at five. Those were massive boots to fill. When Mahela was not available for SSC, Michael wanted me to bat at number four. As a result, big runs followed in domestic cricket and I was called up to the senior side as a specialist batter.”

It’s been a struggle for Sri Lankan cricket in the last decade with the team ranked in bottom half of ICC standing across all three formats. Tilan has had a stint as Sri Lanka’s batting coach and has an interesting theory.

“Current players are fitter than us. I don’t see lack of commitment or focus. They are immensely gifted too. But what they lack is game intelligence. That’s a huge part in international cricket,” he says.

“When I went on a tour to England in 2002, I was a reserve and had little playing opportunities. But I returned home with much knowledge. When you talk to the likes of Aravinda de Silva, Hashan TIllekeratne, Sanath Jayasuriya and Marvan Atapattu on how they see the game and adjust to situations, it was a massive learning experience.”

“Similarly, I played the first couple of seasons of domestic cricket for Colts and the learning curve at that stage of my career was massive.”

Tilan currently lives in Melbourne and he is contracted with Cricket Australia. He was the Assistant Coach of the Australian side that won the ICC Under-19 World Cup in South Africa this year.