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Summary The former Sri Lanka captain said Sri Lanka need to maintain faith in their young side.
Sanath Jayasuriya, the former Sri Lanka captain, has said that Sri Lanka need to maintain faith in their young side and new captain despite the teams recent rough patch.Since reaching the final of the 2011 World Cup, Sri Lanka have lost one-day and Test series in England, at home to Australia and against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates.Jayasuriya admitted results had been disappointing but said Sri Lanka were in transition since they have a new captain in Tillakaratne Dilshan, a new coach in Geoff Marsh and several young players in the squad.Its a bit disappointing to lose both the series, Jayasuriya said after the losses in the UAE. It would have been ideal had we won at least one series. However, Sri Lanka are playing a number of youngsters so you need to give them some time. You cant keep changing the side. There are quite a few senior players and when they retire you need players who are already groomed to replace them.These are hard times for Sri Lankan cricket but we have talented players; the only thing they need is time, and we need to put faith in them and give them confidence.Dilshan, who took over as captain from Kumar Sangakkara after the World Cup, has struggled to reproduce the form he showed in that tournament. Since the World Cup, he has averaged 17.43 with the bat in 16 ODIs, while in Tests he has averaged 24.81 over the previous two series. Jayasuriya backed Dilshan to come good and said he needed to be persisted with as captain.Dilshan is a great player and we all have seen what he can do, but unfortunately he is going through a lean patch, so we need to have faith in him. He has just got the job and anybody who takes the captaincy needs time.Since the retirement of Muttiah Muralitharan last year, Sri Lanka has had an inexperienced bowling attack, but it was the batting that let them down in the UAE. Jayasuriya said the batsmen were not aggressive enough in the Test series and lamented the fact that none of the batsmen lent support to Sangakkara, who waged a lone battle, scoring 516 runs in the Tests. Sri Lankas second-highest run-getter in the series was Tharanga Paranavitana with 195 runs.
