“You won’t get picked if you don’t keep yourself fit and play well,” Thisara said during an online media briefing on Tuesday. “Even in the year since retirement I’ve played in seven or eight franchise tournaments, I think. If you don’t perform you won’t get invited.”
“I work well with all the players. I like to think that I know each of their talents from 0-10, and how to get the best out of each of them. You have to talk to each of them different.
“As a group we also learn every day. Even if you take me, I played 13 years for the national side but I’m still learning every day – you don’t stop learning until the day you stop playing. If we can improve even incrementally then we should aim to do that, but our biggest strength is definitely our unity. We all work for each other. We’re all one family.”
“Sometimes we’ll come back tired and some coaches will insist on doing a particular task or activity – these are coaches who haven’t played cricket at the highest level. So when we have someone that’s played at a high level, we know he understands the players.”
In terms of his own career, Thisara maintains that his retirement from international cricket came at the right time.
“I don’t think I retired too soon. The reason is I saw that there were several talented players in line behind me, if I hung around I don’t think some of them would have come to prominence. But I know that I can still hold my own against my peers in the national side.
“As for me, I’m just happy to get on with playing my franchise cricket and doing things the Thisara Perera way.”