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Former captain of Sri Lankan cricket team, Dinesh Chandimal is remembered as the captain of the T20 World Cup winning team. He was made the captain for the tournament but before the semi-finals he decided to sit himself out. Lasith Malinga got the captaincy and the team defeated India and captured the trophy in 2014.
Former Sri Lankan captain Dinesh Chandimal had removed himself from the playing eleven due to poor form.
New Delhi. This time, Sri Lanka is hosting the ICC T20 World Cup along with India. The winning team of the 2014 tournament showed its way out of the group stage by defeating a team like Australia. Sri Lanka has again regained its lost shine in the last few years. The contribution of former captain Sanath Jayasuriya is behind this. As a coach, he groomed the team and built it back up. The history of the captains of this team has been very illustrious. Here we will talk about one such captain who himself decided to sit out in the middle of the tournament in order to make the team world champion.
The 2014 T20 World Cup was played in Bangladesh. In 2013, Sri Lanka made Chandimal the captain in both ODI and T20. With big and senior players like Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, Lasith Malinga, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Angelo Mathews, Rangana Herath, making him captain was a surprising decision. Unfortunately, the form of Chandimal, who scored runs in Test cricket, was completely poor in the shorter formats. Before the World Cup, Chandimal scored 18 and 3 runs in two T20 matches against Bangladesh in Chittagong. Scored 12 runs against South Africa at the start of the tournament, did not get a chance to bat against the Netherlands, and did not bat in the top six against England.
What happened in the 2014 tournament
Sri Lanka scored 189-4. England achieved the target with four balls remaining. But after the cut-off time. Chandimal had already been punished for bowling less overs in a T20 match against New Zealand. On the second mistake he got a fine and a ban of one match. Sri Lanka had to win the next match against New Zealand, but without Chandimal. Sri Lanka replaced him with Lahiru Thirimane in the team. Under Malinga’s captaincy, Sri Lanka scored only 119 runs, but Herath (5-3) bowled out New Zealand for just 60 runs and the team reached the semi-finals, where they would face West Indies.