Sri Lanka’s new Test Captain Kusal Mendis with Mahela Jayawardene who held the reins as all three formats Captain before him
Dhananjaya de Silva goes out with an unpretentious record as captain
By Sa’adi Thawfeeq
Dhananjaya de Silva’s reign as Sri Lanka’s Test Captain has ended and Kusal Mendis has been appointed Sri Lanka’s 19th Test captain.
De Silva, the 35-year-old right-hand middle order batsman has stepped down with immediate effect citing “It’s my genuine opinion that the mantle should go down to the next generation” as the reason in a letter addressed to Sri Lanka Cricket.
De Silva has however confirmed that he will continue to remain available for selection as a player.
“Sri Lanka Cricket wishes him the very best for the remainder of his career and thanks him for the leadership he provided to our Test team,” said Ashley de Silva, CEO of Sri Lanka Cricket.
“Sri Lanka Cricket welcomes his continued availability as a player and looks forward to his continued contributions to Sri Lankan cricket.”
Shortly afterwards the selection committee met and decided to appoint Kusal Mendis as the new Test Captain to succeed De Silva. 31-year-old Mendis, a right-hand bat and wicket-keeper is already the country’s ODI and T20I captain. He will now lead his country in all three formats starting with the ongoing Pakistan tour.
Mahela Jayawardene was the player who held the reins as Captain of all three formats before Mendis. Since Jayawardene no Sri Lankan skipper has been given this responsibility.
De Silva was appointed as Test Captain in 2024 following Dimuth Karunaratne’s retirement. He led Sri Lanka to series wins over Afghanistan (home), Bangladesh (home and away) and New Zealand (home) and goes out with an unpretentious record of 7 wins, 8 losses and 3 draws.
His best year as Captain was in 2024 as the team recorded a 2-0 series win in Bangladesh, then produced a victory at The Oval (in a series they lost 2-1), before beating New Zealand 2-0 at home. This was followed by a stretch of four consecutive defeats against South Africa (away) and Australia (at home), between late 2024 and early 2025.
He began his Test career as Captain on a high note. In just his second Test in charge, de Silva struck twin centuries in Sylhet to lead Sri Lanka to a 328-run win over Bangladesh. He scored two more centuries as captain and averaged 36.45 with the bat accumulating 1130 runs.
But in the recently concluded series against India at home which Sri Lanka lost 1-0 (1 drawn) De Silva’s captaincy came under the scrutiny as being too defensive, failing to take advantage and convert it into opportunities when it presented itself. The infrequency of Test matches played by Sri Lanka during his period as captain also had a negative effect.
After Sri Lanka won a two-Test home series 1-0 against Bangladesh in June 2025, they had to wait for a full 12 months before the next series which was in the West Indies in June 2026.
To De Silva’s credit it must be said that he had spoken critically of the lack of Test matches played by Sri Lanka which largely affected the Test specialists and led to senior players like Dimuth Karunaratne and Angelo Mathews having to end their careers rather prematurely.
With Sri Lanka virtually out of the running for the top two places in the ICC World Test Championship cycle (2025-27), may have also prompted De Silva to step down.
Mendis who has captained his country in 22 ODIs and 3 T20Is will begin his Test captaincy reign in the two-match Test series against Pakistan starting at Rawalpindi on 9 November.