Mahela Jayawardene may have taken over as Sri Lankan skipper but he has no intention of staying in the role for long.

Following Tillekaratne Dilshan's decision to resign from the position, Jayawardene reluctantly agreed to begin another stint at the helm of the national team. The middle-order batsman held the captaincy in ODIs from 2004 to 2009 and took over in Tests in 2006. However, he resigned in 2009 stating that he wanted his successor to have time to build towards last year's World Cup.

Kumar Sangakkara was the man who took over from Jayawardene and he led Sri Lanka to the final of the World Cup before stepping down. Dilshan then led the team for nine months in which they lost all four series played. The hard-hitting batsman relinquished the reins after the recent series defeat to South Africa although he seemed to do so under some pressure.

With the team in disarray, Jaywardene has stepped up to the plate but he has no desire to take the role beyond the grooming of a younger replacement.

"I took up the captaincy once again, for one year. Our target is to win matches, to regain our place as one of the top four Test-playing nations," he said.

"We have failed as a team in the past but we have to look past that and move forward. We face India and Australia next month. We need to take the positives from South Africa and focus on winning matches again.

"This is a juncture where the Sri Lanka cricket team needs someone's help," he added.

"I told the selectors that I will at the most remain the captain for a year, and we came to an agreement. To remain as the skipper I will have to contribute to the team. If I'm not doing a perfect role as a player, then I should not hold the captaincy.

"I will turn 35 this year and I don't have any intention to even remain in the team if I'm not making my contributions as a player. It's a short-term decision. We will work on grooming the team and a future captain as well."

Jaywardene admitted that the captaincy carousel had in part occurred as a result of pressure being applied by outside forces.

"Pressure can be anything. The decision we took when both of us stepped down was mostly cricket decisions and facts. Knowing that where we were at our cricketing career and what we need to improve ourselves plus to give more oppor tunities to younger leaders" he explained.

"Yes. Invariably in Sri Lanka there was a lot of pressure. There was outside pressure and lot of other pressures. There was a lot of fiction. People writing about a lot of things. We only had a few oppor tunities to explain ourselves. We firmly believe that we have to be very transparent in our decision making. Everyone should know why we make cer tain decisions. And what kind of thinking goes behind those decisions. It's a fact everybody needs to know all these. If people know the reasons they will know why we are making that kind of decisions"

The 34-year-old has the backing of his predecessor who would like to see him remain in the role for longer than a year.

"Twelve months is not enough to groom a young Sri Lanka cricket team and a new captain. My opinion is that Mahela should be there for at least two years and we as players are willing to offer our support to him," said Dilshan.

Geoff Marsh has been replaced by Graham Ford as coach of the team and Jaywardene is hesitant about focusing too much on the change.

"That is not my area. That is up to the selectors," he said of the decision to axe Marsh. "My focus is to work with what I have got. Graham is experienced, and we need his services to rebuild, harness new players and win games."