Chamika Karunaratne has taken the position of captain
Dasun Shanaka in Sri Lanka’s World Cup roster after Shanaka tore his quadriceps
against Pakistan last time out. The projected recuperation time for this injury
is three weeks, by which time Sri Lanka should have completed the majority of
their round-robin games.
Karunaratne, a seam-bowling all-rounder who bats lower
in the order, can be thought of as a like-for-like alternative. While Shanaka
excels at batting, Karunaratne’s primary focus has generally been bowling. He
was a standby player who had been travelling with the team and will be
available for Sri Lanka’s match against Australia on Monday.
Since Kusal Mendis has been serving as the team’s
vice-captain for the previous few months and actually led them in one of Sri
Lanka’s warm-up games, which Shanaka had missed, the Sri Lankan team management
stated that he will take over as captain in place of Shanaka. Mahinda
Halangoda, the team manager, added that despite Shanaka leaving the team, he
would stay with them “for the time being.”
Since he had been terrible with the bat during the
previous few months, Shanaka’s spot in the XI had already come under a great
deal of strain. In his previous 15 ODI innings, which included the World Cup
qualifier in Zimbabwe, he had only once reached scores of 35.
However, the squad has mostly performed well under his
leadership, winning that Qualifier while going undefeated and reaching the
latest Asia Cup final, which was primarily contested in Sri Lanka.
However, Sri Lanka’s World Cup campaign hasn’t gotten
off to a great start after losses to Pakistan and South Africa. They have
already lost both games by a combined score of 775 runs, so the inclusion of a
bowling all-arounder would be beneficial.