Mahela Jayawardene extends Somerset stay for Royal London One-Day Cup 2016

Jayawardene extends Somerset stay

Sri Lankan great Mahela Jayawardene has decided to stay with Somerset for the rest of their Royal London One-Day Cup campaign. The right-hand batsman who has retired from international cricket earlier had signed up for the county for the NatWest T20 Blast only, but has now extended his stay for the 50-over competition as well. Somerset are currently third on the Points table in the South Group after having played 4 games. They have won two, lost one and tied one game. The Sri Lankan batting maestro has 15,181 runs in his List A career. He averages 33.43. He has 20 hundreds and 94 fifties to his name. READ: Rahul Dravid, Mahela Jayawardene join ICC cricket committee

Jayawardena told Somerset’s official website, “This is really good news for me and I am very pleased to be staying with Somerset to play in the Royal London One-Day Cup this season. I am enjoying playing for the county and living here in Taunton.” He added, “I will be doing my very best to try to make sure that Somerset reach the next stage of the competition and get to the final at Lord’s.” READ: Mahela Jaywardene signed by Somerset for NatWest T20 Blast 2016

Meanwhile, Somerset’s director of cricket Matt Maynard said, “Mahela is a high class performer so when he became available for the rest of our Royal London One-Day Cup campaign we signed him without any hesitation,” as quoted by Skysports.com.

He further added, “Hopefully the addition of him to our batting line up will enable us to go all the way in the competition and of course it also means that Somerset fans will get more opportunities to see Mahela in action this season.”