The SLC chairman of selectors Upul Tharanga has announced Dhananjaya de Silva as the new captain of the test team.
Dhananjaya de Silva as Sri Lanka’s new Test Captain
The Sri Lanka Cricket Board’s newly appointed Chairman Upul Tharanga named Dhanajaya as the test captain on Thursday.
This is due to reviving Sri Lanka cricket and fixing the top-order concerns and poor fielding during the recently concluded in the recent ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 in India. Sri Lanka has been placed in the ninth position with just two wins out of nine matches they played in the ICC event in India.
Batter Kusal Mendis and all-rounder Wanindu Hasaranga are being looked at as captains in white-ball cricket.
“The new Chairman of Selectors, Upul Tharanga while announcing that Dhananjaya de Silva had been appointed as the new captain of the Sri Lanka Test Cricket Team, and that much as the option would have been for one captain for all three formats that there was no other choice than to go for three separate captains in Kusal Mendis for ODIs and Wanindu Hasaranga for (T20Is) because there was no suitable automatic choice, observed that his selection committee’s immediate concern was to fix the inconsistency bugging the top order batting as well as poor fielding that had led to the country’s recent world cup debacle.”
“However, he said that Hasaranga had been earmarked as a long-term choice,” said a statement from SLC.
“We came apart at the World Cup due to the bugging inconsistency in the batting where mainly the top four who are the nucleus failed to click. If a batsman scored in one game his failure thereafter was a major setback and we aim to arrest that major drawback.”
All these players are not short of talent, but there is an obvious shortcoming where consistency is concerned and we have already spoken with the coaches concerned regarding sorting out this problem,” said Tharanga.
“The fielding too was found wanting with a lot of dropped chances where mainly half chances went a begging which at that level of the game have to be taken in keeping with the adage catches win matches,” said Upul Tharanga.
“We took into account that therefore, Mendis needed a fair chance to settle down to the job,” he concluded.
Although Sri Lanka does not have any test matches until August, they will be playing an ODI series against Zimbabwe. Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe will be playing their first ODI match on January 08 at R. Premadasa Stadium.
