Sri Lankan batsman Thilan Samaraweera has announced his retirement from international cricket. He handed a resignation letter to Sri Lanka Cricket on Tuesday but officials said they would try to change his decision.
Samaraweera held a press conference on Wednesday after the meeting with Sri Lankan Cricket board officials and said, "Today I had a meeting with the selectors at Sri Lanka Cricket and they said that they wanted to go with two other experienced batsmen for both the Bangladesh and Zimbabwe series".
"The selectors clearly mentioned that I would definitely get a chance to play against Pakistan in December this year. That's a long time and I can't wait that long, so I came up with the decision to retire."
"There was no point in waiting for nine months. I respect the decision of the selectors to go with young players and decided it was the right time to retire."
"I was shocked with my omission from the squad against Bangladesh,"
"I never wanted a farewell match because if you're not good enough to be in the 15-man squad, there's nowhere in the world you can play in the first XI," Samaraweera added.
"I didn't want to be selfish and deprive a youngster of his place by requesting to play in a farewell test."
Samaraweera (36) will, however, play for Worcestershire in English county cricket this year.
Samaraweera has played 81 Test matches, scoring 5,462 runs at an average of 48.76 with 14 hundreds. He has also played 53 one-day internationals, scoring 862 runs at 27.80 with two hundreds.
(with inputs from ANI)
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