(Cricket news) Soon after the announcement from Sri Lanka cricket about the recent appointments of Kusal Mendis and Wanindu Hasaranga as leaders of the ODI and T20I sides respectively, Sri Lanka will now enter 2024 with a new red ball captain as Dhananjay De Silva has been named as the new Sri Lankan test captain.
De Silva will become the 18th different player to lead Sri Lanka in men’s Tests when they take on Afghanistan in a one-off test match this February. Dhananjay takes over the responsibility of the side from Dimuth Karunaratne, who led the Lankans in 30 Tests from 2019 to 2023, finishing with a 12 wins 12 loss and 6 draws under his belt.
Karunaratne’s tenure as captain began with a historic series win in South Africa when they beat the Proteas against all the odds but the results thereafter were less dramatic in nature. Karunaratne the batter averaged nearly 50 with the bat, which was considerably higher than his career average of 40.93 during his captaincy tenure which displayed that captaincy somehow brought the best out of him.
De Silva, the new Sri lankan captain has been a regular member of the squad and has a lot of experience playing red ball cricket. He has represented Sri Lanka in 51 Tests and has fetched 3301 runs at an average shade under 40.
“I would have preferred to have the same captain for all three formats,” said chief selector Upul Tharanga, “but we are unable to do that at the moment with the players we have.”
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