Jayasuriya's future in his hands says captain

Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara wants star batsman Sanath Jayasuriya to carry on playing for just as long as he can after the veteran opener proved age was no barrier to success at the World Twenty20.
Aged 39 and the oldest player in the tournament, left-hander Jayasuriya ended a brief run of indifferent form with a sparkling 81 in Sri Lanka's 15-run win over the West Indies at Trent Bridge on Thursday.
Both sides were already through to the second phase Super Eights but the bonus for Sri Lanka was to see Jayasuriya, whose innings featured his trademark cuts for six over point, look back to his best in a stay of just 47 balls.
Jayasuriya called time on his Test career in 2007 but his latest knock was proof that the man whose aggressive batting revolutionised the one-day game during Sri Lanka's 1996 World Cup triumph, remains a potent forced in limited overs cricket.
"As a side, we have never had questions over what he can do," Sangakkara told reporters at Lord's on Thursday. "We were just waiting till he made his way into the tournament.
"It's great for his confidence and the team's confidence. He got the runs that we needed and the manner in which he got them," the wicket-keeper/batsman added.
"We need him to play the way he has played for years now.
"He's a match winner and as long as he's fit and willing to play for us, we are happy to have him. He'll be 40 soon. The decision is finally his.
"We are happy to have him in the side. He's won us lot matches and I am sure he will win a lot of games as well for us in the future.
"It doesn't matter how old you are," Sangakkara stressed. "In my view, if you are fit, scoring runs taking wickets and doing the hard work at training, that's what we require."
Sri Lanka, unbeaten at the tournament so far after wins over Australia and the West Indies, begin their second phase Super Eights programme against Pakistan at Lord's on Friday.
Meanwhile, Sangakkara tried to play down suggestions that Sri Lanka's early results made them one of the favourites.
"We've got lot of confidence form the last two games. But it's going to be a new game tomorrow (Friday). T-20 is very unpredictable."
"We can't look far ahead. First we have to qualify for semis and the first thing is we've got to win tomorrow. We are not looking too far ahead."
Spin has been a key factor both of Sri Lanka's wins and not just from off-break star Muttiah Muralitharan.
Mystery spinner Ajantha Mendis has proved arguably even harder to handle than Murali and Sangakkara said: "Spin has been our strength for years. Hopefully they can keep performing and add new variations to their armoury."

Twenty20, new country for old men

Sri Lanka's Sanath Jayasuriya may be the oldest cricketer at 39 in the World Twenty20, but he has just as much chance of achieving success as any youngster.
The batting exploites of retired Australians Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist in the recent Indian Premier League have only made the "age v youth" debate more interesting in the latest format of the game.
The 37-year-olds comfortably won the opening round, with Hayden emerging the tournament's leading scorer with 572 runs in 12 matches and Gilchrist the second-best with 495 in 16.
Wicketkeeper-batsman Gilchrist was also named the player of the tournament for leading the 2008 bottom-placed Deccan Chargers to the title-triumph this year.
"The success of the senior players in the IPL highlights the fact that Twenty20 can accommodate all cricketers -- if they are good enough -- regardless of their age," said Gilchrist.
"Like baseball, you will see that as T20 continues to develop, older players, especially batsmen, will start extending their careers to their late thirties and beyond."
Also speaking strongly in veterans' favour were India's Anil Kumble, 38, Sri Lankan Muttiah Muralitharan, 37 and Australian Shane Warne, 39. The spinners proved with their match-winning spells that performance mattered more than age.
Leg-spinner Kumble, who quit international cricket last year, set the IPL on fire with an amazing 5-5 performance (v Rajasthan) before ending up the tournament's second-highest wicket-taker with 21.
Off-spinner Muralitharan, the world's leading bowler in Tests (770 wickets) and one-day internationals (505), was as disciplined as ever, grabbing 14 wickets for semi-finalists Chennai.
The wily Sri Lankan had an economy-rate of 5.22 -- the best by any bowler with 10 or more matches in this year's IPL.
"I think Twenty20 is ideally suited for us (retired players). It's good knowing that you only have to bowl four overs," said Kumble, who led Bangalore to the final.
"I agree it's a young man's game and you need to be supremely fit and athletic, but if you have six or seven guys like that, experienced guys can take the pressure and use their skills to pull a team through."
India's Sachin Tendulkar, who has opted out of T20 internationals, also batted for the veterans, saying that age was no barrier to success.
"It's a cricketers' game, so it really doesn't matter whether you are young or old. It's a cricket match," said Tendulkar, the world's top scorer in Tests (12,773) and one-dayers (16,684).
If further proof was needed of the veterans' significance, it was provided by Warne who marshalled his limited resources remarkably well to lead Rajasthan to victory last year besides excelling as a bowler.
"You really need to pinch yourself to believe that he (Warne) can still spin a web around the batsmen in the world," Indian off-spinner Harbhajan Singh said during the recent IPL.
"He retired in 2007 and now spends more time on the poker table than on cricket pitches, but give him the ball and the magic resumes."

Tendulkar, Jayasuriya win it for Mumbai

Senior pros Sachin Tendulkar and Sanath Jayasuriya produced vintage strokeplay to give Mumbai Indians a key victory in the Indian Premier League here on Monday.
The ageing duo hammered 127 for the first wicket from just 12.2 overs as Mumbai scored 187-6 in 20 overs after electing to take first strike and then bowled out Kolkata Knight Riders for 95 in 15.2 overs.
The massive 92-run victory took Mumbai's tally to five points from four matches, putting them in third place behind leaders Deccan Chargers (eight points) and Delhi Daredevils (six).
Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan's Knight Riders were left tottering on three points from five games and needed to win a majority of their remaining nine matches to stay in contention for the semi-finals.
Tendulkar, the world's leading Test and one-day batsman who has voluntarily opted out of India's Twenty20 squad, smashed a brilliant 68 off 45 balls.
The prolific 36-year-old hit six boundaries and four sixes, one of them against Sri Lankan spinner Ajantha Mendis that landed outside the St George's Park stadium.
Jayasuriya, who turns 40 in June, hammered 52 off 32 balls with two fours and four sixes as the veterans turned the clock back in a breathtaking display of attacking batting.
Kolkata's chase faltered early when skipper Brendon McCullum was dismissed by Lasith Malinga in the second over and West Indian captain Chris Gayle fell to team-mate Dwayne Bravo in the third.
Brad Hodge (24) and Sourav Ganguly (34) were the chief contributors to Kolkata's meagre total as Lasith Malinga and Abhishek Nayar scalped three wickets each.