Lahiru Thirimanne surprised with the Selectors decision

Sri Lankan batter Lahiru Thirimanne tweeted and said that he was surprised with the inclusion of Angelo Mathews in the middle of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023, and he couldn’t understand the process of selecting the selectors.

Surprised with the inclusion of @Angelo69Mathews at this stage of the tournament. And cant understand the thought process of the selectors. Thought they wanted to build a young team going forward 🤦‍♂️ anyway no pressure now @Angelo69Mathews 😅

— Lahiru Thirimanna (@thiri66) October 20, 2023

A few years ago, the Sri Lankan selection committee decided to drop some senior players from the limited-overs format and build a young team to go forward to the 2023 World Cup. With that decision, some players like Lahiru Thirimanne, Thisara Perera, and Isuru Idana announced their retirement from international cricket, and some players like Dimuth Karunarathne, Dinesh Chandimal, and Angelo Mathews were considered only for Test matches in the last 2 years.

However, after a long break, SLC brought Dimuth Karunarathne and Angelo Mathews back into the limited-overs setup during the Afghanistan tour of Sri Lanka to strengthen the Sri Lankan batting line-up.
At the end of the ODI series between Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, selectors dropped Angelo Mathews and kept Dimuth Karunarathne from the squad for the ICC World Cup qualifier matches in Zimbabwe.

Sri Lanka announced their squad had less than 24 hours to depart the World Cup in India. Sri Lanka hasn’t had a good outing in the ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 so far. They lost their two warm-up games to Afghanistan and Bangladesh earlier. After that, Sri Lanka lost their first three matches and is currently at the bottom of the points table.