Atapattu receives captaincy backing from de Silva

Aravinda de Silva, the vice-president of Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC), has made it clear that .Marvan Atapattu is in line to inherit the Test captaincy from Hashan Tillakaratne.

"Marvan knows that it is only a matter of time before he is handed over the Sri Lanka Test captaincy," said de Silva, himself a former Sri Lanka captain and the country's leading run-scorer in both forms of the game. "He is aware of it and he has been told that he will be Hashan's [Tillakaratne] successor."

"We want to make the transition as easy as possible for Marvan and the best time to hand the captaincy over to him is when the team is performing well and when the batsmen are in good form. This way there will be no extra pressure on Marvan," added de Silva. "We have identified that Marvan is the best player to lead the country to the 2007 World Cup and we don't want to burden him with the captaincy too early."

"Marvan has been told what our future plans are and to make our intentions clear we have always invited him to all selection committee meetings so that he is aware of what is happening," said de Silva. "However strong a personality you are, captaincy affects you in some ways. It may even affect your individual performances. Our main worry was that it should not affect Marvan's batting because he is our premier batsman.

"The reason why we decided on two captains was to give Marvan enough time to establish himself as one-day captain before taking over the Test captaincy. We thought one year would be sufficient." The 33-year-old Atapattu was appointed as Sri Lanka's one-day captain in May last year following the resignation of Sanath Jayasuriya. After a disappointing beginning in the Bank Alfallah Cup triangular against New Zealand and Pakistan, in which his team failed to qualify for a home one-day final for the first time, he has led Sri Lanka to series wins over West Indies (2-1) and England (1-0).

De Silva refuted accusations in some sections of the media that he was siding with Tillakaratne for the Sri Lankan captaincy, because of their common background of school (D.S. Senanayake) and club (NCC). "I will be the last person to favour anyone. To me individuals don't matter. The best team should play for Sri Lanka. We cannot allow such loose talk to divert our attention from carrying out our responsibilities as selectors."

"My opinion on certain individuals may not necessarily be shared by the other members of the selection committee," said De Silva. "There are four of us including the chairman and we discuss what is best for Sri Lanka cricket and take a collective decision. We also invite the coach John Dyson who gives us a lot of input into selections."