FOUR UNCAPPED PLAYERS IN 17-MEMBER SQUAD
‘Double double’ centurion Angelo Perera called up
Dinesh Chandimal was the biggest causality following Sri Lanka’s poor tours of New Zealand and Australia, and was removed as captain and dropped from the squad for this month’s Tests against South Africa.
A Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) statement yesterday said that Chandimal has being released from National duty to return to play domestic cricket and to regain his form.
Opener Dimuth Karunaratne, named as stand-in captain for the upcoming series, will lead a relatively inexperienced squad of players, half of them whom have played less than five Tests.
Despite a half century in Sri Lanka’s first innings in the Boxing Day Test against New Zealand, Chandimal had a dismal return in his next five innings – four of those innings being single digit scores – and was joined by Roshen Silva and Sadeera Samarawickrama as the batsmen axed for the upcoming Tests.
One of those places was taken by middle-order batsman Angelo Perera, who last week created domestic cricket history, by becoming the first to score two double hundreds in the same First-class match, with innings of 201 and 231 against the SSC.
Perera has previously represented Sri Lanka in six limited over matches, but is yet to feature in the longer format of the game.
Also in the squad are the two leading run scorers in the ongoing SLC Premier League Tier ‘A’ Tournament, Oshada Fernando and Kaushal Silva.
Fernando is the leader in the scoring charts (1,181 runs) with six centuries in 16 innings while Silva (950 runs in 12 innings) has returned to the squad.
However, Fernando is yet to feature at international level.
All-rounder Milinda Siriwardana replaces Dilruwan Perera who made a minimal impact during the Tests against Australia, while Sri Lanka’s young, inexperienced fast bowling unit will have another chance in favourable conditions in South Africa.
Suranga Lakmal, who missed the second Test against Australia, returns from injury and will likely lead the attack, while right-arm medium-fast bowler Mohamed Shiraz will be in line for a Test debut.
Left-arm spinner Lasith Embuldeniya, who had good returns on the recent Ireland ‘A’ tour of Sri Lanka, is the fourth uncapped player in the Sri Lanka Squad.