Kusal Mendis has been recalled and made vice-captain for the Bangladesh ODIs
Kusal Perera has been named new ODI captain and Kusal Mendis has been recalled and made vice-captain, while Dimuth Karunaratne, Angelo Mathews and Dinesh Chandimal have been dropped in a major shake-up of Sri Lanka’s ODI team.
In naming a young squad, Sri Lanka’s new selection committee – headed by Pramodya Wickramasinghe – and coach Mickey Arthur have signalled they are seeking to aggressively develop a fresh set of limited-overs players with a view to the 2023 World Cup. Across the 18 players named, only 33-year-old Isuru Udana is older than 31, and just three players are above 30.
While the ousting of Karunaratne is something of a surprise (the team had performed better under him than they had in the 18 months leading up to his captaincy) it is the dropping of Mathews that will be most controversial. Mathews’ most-recent ODI outings have largely been good. He was Player of the Match in the second-to-last match he’d played, in March last year, for his four wickets. Before that, he’d also been one of Sri Lanka’s best batsmen at the 2019 World Cup, and had averaged 52.5 with the bat in 2018, and 63.66 in 2017. Mathews’ fielding and fitness standards had appeared to have improved substantially by the start of 2020 as well.
Karunaratne, meanwhile, had not been quite as good with the bat – averaging 36.06 with the bat since he took over, and striking at just 76.52. But under his captaincy, Sri Lanka had won 10 and lost seven matches.
Kusal Perera, has never led Sri Lanka in any format, but his ODI batting had achieved some level of consistency in 2019, when he average 43.06 with a strike rate of 100. He is set to become Sri Lanka’s ninth ODI captain in the last five years – Chandimal, Mathews, Lasith Malinga, Thisara Perera, Upul Tharanga, Lahiru Thirimanne, and Chamara Kapugedara having held the post, in addition to Karunaratne.
From among the younger players in Sri Lanka’s talent pool, the selectors had wanted Avishka Fernando in the squad, but he failed a fitness test which according to the strict selection policy put in place by Arthur ruled him out of contention. Fernando had also missed the tour of West Indies in February for the same reason.
Squad: Kusal Perera (capt), Kusal Mendis (vice-capt), Danushka Gunathilaka, Dhananjaya de Silva, Pathum Nissanka, Dasun Shanaka, Ashen Bandara, Wanindu Hasaranga, Isuru Udana, Akila Dananjaya, Niroshan Dickwella, Dushmantha Chameera, Ramesh Mendis, Asitha Fernando, Lakshan Sandakan, Chamika Karunaratne, Binura Fernando, Shiran Fernando
More to follow…
Andrew Fidel Fernando is ESPNcricinfo’s Sri Lanka correspondent. @afidelf