Ever since Sri Lanka’s memorable campaign in the World Cup in the West Indies, everything has gone downhill for the Sri Lankans in the shorter version of the game. In short, apart from the series win against the lowly Bangladesh, Sri Lanka were humbled by England and were humiliated by India and Australia in the triangular Commonwealth Bank Series down under where they failed to qualify for the finals. They were further hitting downhill losing the three match series to the West Indies, who are ranked eighth in the ICC Points Table and a series of poor efforts meant Sri Lanka slid down to the sixth position of the points table from being number two behind Australia.

Last October, Sri Lanka lost to England 3-2 winning the dead rubber after the tourists had taken a 3-1 lead and in Australia, they won an overs curtailed game against India and the final match of the series against Australia in eight outings. They will return home having lost the ODI series 2-0 to the West Indies with the third game being abandoned. All in all, Sri Lanka has lost ten of its last 16 matches winning just four games with two being abandoned.

In the process, Jayawardene became the first Sri Lankan captain to lose a home ODI series to England. In recent times, England have never been masters of ODI cricket and a home series defeat to them was an indication of things to follow and the local supporters were made to watch in pain as Sri Lanka committed ‘hara-kiri’ with tactical blunders in Australia.

Over the next few weeks there’ll be calls to elevate Jayawardene’s deputy Kumar Sangakkara to the leadership role of the ODI team. Chairman of Selectors Ashantha de Mel fired the first shot when he said, "We are on the downhill and we will sit down and take stock of the situation."

"At the moment we haven’t put any pressure on Mahela, but it’s high time we do," he told ‘The Island’ yesterday.

Like many who have the interests of Sri Lankan cricket at heart, de Mel too was perplexed by some of the team selections, a grumble that many have echoed over the last few months.

Opener Upul Tharanga for example was dropped in Australia after just one game and was forced to carry drinks despite Sri Lanka having clear problems in the opening position. The assurance was given that Tharanga will be told to work on certain areas in Colombo, but before he played any domestic games and sorted out ‘the problems’, the young opener was picked for the ODI series in the Caribbean and was again left out from the final ODI despite top scoring in the second game.

And whom did Sri Lanka open with? Kumar Sangakkara, a genuine number three batsman, who was not in the best of form in the Caribbean. The decision backfired with Sangakkara making just one in the final game.

"Some of the team selections are a cause for concern. Upul for example was our top scorer in the second game and he was left out for the final match. Right along we are saying that we want to build up for the future, but what you saw yesterday wasn’t building up. I didn’t see any logic in that decision," de Mel said and that’s an indication that there were certain disagreements with the selectors and the captain.

"If we expose the younger players and then lose matches, that’s understandable, but if these objectives aren’t met and if we are still losing, then there’s a problem,," he added.

Jayawardene’s popularity is also waning after run-ins with the senior players of the side. His refusal to support Chaminda Vaas when the vice-captaincy was taken from him and given to the left-arm seamer it created some unhappiness in the dressing room three years ago. There have been other instances too when the initiative to sideline other proven campaigners such as Sanath Jayasuriya and Marvan Atapattu indeed came from Jayawardene.

Jayawardene then stunned an entire nation in November last year when he dropped Vaas, who was on the brink of making his 100th Test appearance for Sri Lanka.

De Mel of course will not forget Jayawardene absolving himself when Atapattu made a scathing attack on the selectors for continuously overlooking him during the World Cup campaign in the West Indies. Instead of defending the decision taken to leave out Atapattu, the captain for once sided with his senior colleague.

The coming few weeks will certainly be interesting in local cricket.

Should Jayawardene be axed as captain?
Should Sri Lanka’s selectors split the captaincy and axe Mahela Jayawardene as ODI captain.
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