Sri Lanka cricketer Danushka Gunathilaka has announced his retirement from Test cricket after being banned by Cricket Sri Lanka (CSL). The news comes as a welcome blow for Sri Lankan cricket as earlier Bhanuka Rajapaksa also announced his discontent on the board and opted to leave the game on the international front. Interestingly, both Gunathilaka and Rajapaksa have bowed out of the game at the mere age of 30.
Gunathilaka found guilty of breaching the bio-bubble guidelines in England was banned from international cricket until June 2022. He was imposed with a one-year ban after the incident occurred in June 2021.
“It has always been an honour to play for my country and I hope to contribute to the best of my ability in the future by continuing to represent Sri Lanka whenever I am called upon to do so,” he wrote in his letter to CSL.
The letter was submitted to the board last week after the left-handed batter decided to leave the longer format with just eight Test caps. This includes two fifties with the highest score of 61. His average of 18.68 was also a worry for the board. In those eight matches, he managed to score only 299 runs in 16 innings for the national side.
The player though has insisted that he will continue to be part of the domestic circuit as well as the International limited overs contingent. With ODI World Cup in India in 2023 Gunathilaka would be poised to make his return to the squad as early as June. So far in 44 ODI's he has a couple of hundreds and 10 fifties.
Sri Lankan cricket was recently in news for the fitness norms they have established in recent times. The new norms state that a player has to have a skin fold level of 70, which was earlier 85. The players also have to complete the 2 km race in an estimated time of 8 minutes and 10 seconds. Earlier the standard was 8 minutes and 55 seconds as the board decided to cut short the time by 45 seconds. Sr Lanka will next be in action on January 16 as they take on Zimbabwe in a three-match ODI series.
