All-rounder Angelo Mathews replaced lasith Malinga as captain of the Sri lankan cricket team for the ICC World Twenty20 but the injury-ravaged pacer managed to retain his place in the side.
The team was picked by the new selection committee — headed by the former skipper Aravinda de Silva which also includes Kumar Sangakkara. Malinga was asked by the management to resign as captain after a spate of injuries which relegated him to a non-playing captain. The pacer stepped down owing to slow recovery from a knee injury, which forced him to miss most of the recent Asia Cup. It was Malinga who was captain when Sri lanka won the last World T20 held in Bangladesh in 2014.
The Sri lanka Cricket sacked the national cricket selection committee in the wake of the national team’s poor performances in the just-concluded Asia Cup in Bangladesh and the preceding bilateral series in India. In January, Sri lanka had also lost its No 1 ICC Twenty20 ranking after they lost to New Zealand.