Bhanuka Rajapaksa the dashing stroke maker of the Sri Lanka cricket team has withdrawn from the Sri Lanka ODI squad against Afghanistan yesterday evening and returned to Colombo and young SSC player Nuwanidu Fernando is expected to replace him.
According to reliable sources, Bhanuka Rajapaksa has requested from SLC to retire from ODI cricket while he stated he is not in good mental state to take part in the Afghan cricket series and wanted to retire from ODI cricket.
Daily News learnt that Bhanuka Rajapaksa wanted to play Abu Dhabi T10 cricket tournament which already started in Abu Dhabi. However, according to the new player contract, any player who retires from cricket cannot take part in any other overseas cricket tournaments for three months. SLC already refused to give permission to take part in Abu Dhabi T10. (Chamika Katunaratne last minute got the permission from SLC and went to Abu Dhabi for the same tournament last Wednesday).
Meanwhile, SLC released official National ODI’ squad of 16 players with the Sport Ministry approval yesterday evening (just one day before the first ODI today) and Bhanuka Rajapaksa’s name is also included as the 16th player of the squad. The press release also stated that Bhanuka Rajapaksa has requested from Sri Lanka Cricket to release him from the current squad, as he wants to take a break from ODI cricket.
Accordingly, Rajapaksa will be released from the squad.
Bhanuka Rajapaksa the 31 year old left hander played only 5 ODI’ s and scoring 89 runs with highest 65 with a average of 17.80 while he played 35 T20’s more suitable for the T20’s.
He was previously going to retire from International cricket and planned to go to USA after he failed the fitness test but once again changed his decision to come back to the National side.
He was not successful at the last T20 world cup and couldn’t score more then 35 runs in a single game (highest score 34 against New Zealand).
Earlier, he was adjudged the Man of the Final at the Asia Cup T 20 final with a superb knock of 75.
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