Sri Lanka have appointed their star batting allrounder Dhananjaya de Silva as captain in Test cricket to exchange Dimuth Karunaratne. The appointment makes Dhananjaya the 18th participant in historical past to captain Sri Lanka within the red-ball format.
The altering of the guard comes into the image following Sri Lanka’s 2-0 defeat at residence firstly of their marketing campaign within the World Test Championship 2023-25 cycle. Playing at residence, the Lankan Lions had been anticipated to emerge victorious towards the then Babar Azam-led facet however they had been outplayed by the guests and misplaced the primary match in Galle by 4 wickets and the second on the SSC (Sinhalese Sports Club) in Colombo by a staggering margin of an innings and 222 runs.
Notably, Karunaratne had expressed the will to go away the mantle of captaincy in March 2023 as he needed a brand new chief to information the staff throughout the WTC 2023-25 cycle.
“I’ve talked with the selectors about stepping down as captain after the Ireland series. In the next WTC cycle, you’ve got to do two years. I think it’s best if a new captain does that whole cycle than for me to do half and hand over. I’ve talked to the selectors about this, but I haven’t got a response yet. My preference is to hand over to a new leader after the next series,” Karunaratne was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo again then.
Meanwhile, Dhananjaya, now, has a tricky process at hand. His first abroad task as captain can be a stern take a look at within the type of a three-match collection towards England in England in August.
Though Dhananjaya is a reasonably skilled campaigner with 51 Tests in his kitty, he’s but to captain Sri Lanka in a global sport. The 32-year-old has amassed 3301 runs within the longest format of the game with the assistance of 10 centuries and 13 fifties.
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