Dhananjay de Silva has become the new Test captain of the Sri Lanka cricket team. He will be the 18th captain to lead Sri Lanka in Test cricket. This command was handed over to Dhananjay by deposing Dimuth Karunaratne. Sri Lanka chief selector Upal Tharanga has confirmed this.
Dhananjay has played 51 Test matches so far. Here he scored 10 centuries and 13 half-centuries. He will now captain Sri Lanka in a red-ball game for the first time in the Afghanistan Test starting February 6. This is the third captaincy change for the Sri Lanka cricket team across formats in the last few weeks. Earlier, Kusal Mendis was given the command of the ODI team and Wanindu Hasaranga was given the command of the T20 team.
Dimuth Karunaratne took over as captain of the Sri Lanka Test team in 2019. Sri Lanka achieved mixed success during his tenure. He captained 30 Test matches, winning 12 and losing 12. 6 games were drawn. Karunaratne's greatest success as a Test captain came in South Africa. He led Sri Lanka to a Test series win in South Africa in 2019. So far, not even teams like India and Pakistan have been able to win the Test series in South Africa.
While he was captain, Karunaratne was also very successful as a batsman. His batting average in Test cricket is 40.93, but as captain he scored Test runs at an average of 49.86. During this time he also developed into a reliable opener for Sri Lanka. Karunaratne played 88 Test matches in his career. There are more than 6500 runs registered on his account here.