Thilan, it’s not you, it’s those young bastards

It’s like this when every work project goes wrong. There are always the rumors about someone getting the finger pointed at them. You can smell it. You can sense it in an almost animalistic way.

Thilan Samaraweera and been let go.  Without even so much as a reference letter.

We liked you Thilan. It’s not everyday that a cricketer can reinvent themselves midway through their career and become pretty fucken good at it.  We watched you as you crawled your way to century upon century when you were reborn as a batsmen. And we loved it. We liked that we had someone we could actually depend on consistently for runs. We admired you for it.

At one point we even smirked to ourselves as you had that not to secret love affair with the SSC right in front of Mahelas eyes.

Sometimes it sucks to be field expert. You get called in all the big projects and is expected to just slot in seamlessly. But no one asks you out for after work drinks. You get a good pat on the back for your work but you are never quite one of the ‘guys’.

When people said you were taking too long with your work , you worked out a way to get better at time management. And after reeling off 2 double hundreds for fun what did you do. You went and got shot

Yes, you got shot and you lived. That is bad ass.  We thought you could have our baby. But you changed after that. You looked the same. Felt the same. But something just wasn’t right.

But you always dug in with that snarl on your face and was ready for a scrap. You were never pretty at what you did but that just made it more accessible. With Sanga and Mahela we knew they would outclass us. But with you, it was like you were us. An everyday man with just a desire to score runs however he could get it.

Now you are on the wrong side of 30 and looking a bit tired. And the graduate interns are all 2020fied and snapping at your heels

Maybe it’s time for you go. Maybe it isn’t. But we will miss you.

Go forth and spend your days being you for us.

4 Comments

  1. Chavie said:

    Very heartfelt. But looking at the middle order, there’s nothing much to trim there. :/

    September 22, 2011
    Reply
  2. damiths said:

    Cheers Chav. Bit unfair for Thilan to be dropped because Dilshan wants to move down the order.

    September 22, 2011
    Reply
  3. Lankan Kolla said:

    I can’t believe they dropped him either. It looks more like they had to find a place for the struggling captain at the opening position. If Dilshan was not the captain, I am sure he would have been dropped for the 3rd test. If they have so many wicketkeeper/batsmen choices, why not drop Prasanna Jayawardene after his performance in the first two tests?

    September 23, 2011
    Reply
  4. damiths said:

    While I don’t disagree that Thilan should be let go, I think its pretty aweful how we have made him the scapegoat. I don’t think he is the future but he added at least some worthiness to the middle order.

    Dilshan said our bowlers aren’t up the mark and dropped himself down the order and cut Thilans life line. To me that is pretty selfish.

    September 26, 2011
    Reply

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