The wheel has certainly turned a full circle with Dinesh Chandimal being handed Sri Lanka’s T20 captaincy for the two matches against Bangladesh to be played on February 15 and 18 at Dhaka and Sylhet.
Two years ago Chandimal was treated as an outcast being shoved out of the captaincy when he was the officially appointed leader of the Sri Lankan team that went onto to win the World T20 in Bangladesh.
Chandimal was dropped from the team because of poor form and when Sri Lanka won the final it was vice-captain Lasith Malinga who went onto accept the trophy and not Chandimal.
Two years down the line Chandimal finds himself entrusted with not only the country’s Test captaincy but also being asked to lead the ODI and the T20I teams as well, as Sri Lanka’s white ball captain Angelo Mathews is still nursing a hamstring injury and has been ruled out of the Bangladesh tour.
Chandimal last appeared in a T20 international more than a year ago.
Malinga who covered himself with glory is no longer within the radar of selection and there are doubts about him being selected into future national squads after failing to attract a bidder in the recently concluded IPL auction.
The 15-member squad announced yesterday comprises a mixture of youth and experience. Youth in the form of two young seam bowlers Asitha Fernando and Shehan Madushanka aged 20 and 22 and inexperienced spinners Jeffrey Vandersay and Amila Aponso. The experience comes from the recall of leg-spinning all-rounder Jeevan Mendis at the age of 35.
Mendis’ last experience for his country was three years ago in the World Cup match against Afghanistan at Dunedin where he figured in a match winning partnership of 58 with Thisara Perera with his contribution being nine not out.
However since then he has been a consistent performer with bat and ball for Tamil Union in domestic cricket and around the world in T20 cricket with a season of English cricket thrown in for Derbyshire last year for good measure.
Thisara Perera who led Sri Lanka in their last six T20 internationals has been overlooked for the captaincy although he is a member of the squad.
SRI LANKA T20 SQUAD: Dinesh Chandimal (captain), Upul Tharanga, Danushka Gunathilaka, Kusal Perera, Thisara Perera, Asela Gunaratne, Niroshan Dickwella, Dasun Shanaka, Isuru Udana, Shehan Madushanka, Jeffrey Vandersay, Akila Dananjaya, Amila Aponso, Jeevan Mendis, Asitha Fernando.
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