Romesh Kaluwitharana who played 189 One-Day Internationals for Sri Lanka, scored 2798 runs as an opener in 112 innings and featured in 96 wins believes that he and Sanath Jayasuriya began playing Twenty20 style long time before the official Twenty20 began appeal to the cricketing world. “We played Twenty20 in 1996 itself. IPL is giving opportunities to players to express themselves,’’ said Kaluwitharana, who in all won seven man of the match awards, as against Jayasuriya’s 49 in ODIs.
The Kaluwitharana-Jayasuriya opening pair made 3240 runs in 105 matches (105 innings). The 48-year-old former Sri Lankan wicket-keeper batsman was here to launch the SAI Mumbai Masters T20 League for non-professionals in the 33 plus age group promoted by Jwala Sports Foundation, that has played its part in the development of Prithvi Shaw. Former India opener and the highest run getter in Ranji Trophy Wasim Jaffer is also supporting the event. Eight teams will take part in the league set to start from Sunday, January 21.
Kaluwitharana said he was involved in coaching after his retirement and that Dinesh Chandimal, Lahiru Thirimanne and Niroshan Dickwella have been coached by him when he was with the Sri Lanka A-team. “I retired because I found out that Kumar Sangakkara was good glove man.’’
Jaffer who scored 116 against South Africa in the Cape Town Test in January 2007 said: “India was not outplayed in the first Test. I think we were a little unfortunate with the kind of wicket we got. Probably one good innings or partnership would have made us go on top in the series. But you have to give it to the South African bowlers as well. It was a very testing wicket, even their batsman failed. They play on these kind of wickets all the time and yet they failed. We were in the game all the while.
Jaffer defended the team selections made for the first two Tests. “You have got to leave those decisions to the captain and the coach; they are very experienced players and they won’t do any selection to harm the side. They know what they are doing and you got to respect them; they are answerable to the team as well as the whole nation. You got to leave it till the end of the series to ask questions; they are the ones who make the decisions and you got to respect them.’’
