Sri Lankan Batter Danushka Gunathilaka Announces Retirement From Tests
Sri Lankan cricket team player Danushka Gunathilaka has officially announced his retirement from the longest format of the game. He last played a Test for the national team back in 2018 against New Zealand.
Gunathilaka is currently serving a ban along with two other players, Kusal Mendis and Niroshan Dickwella, for breaching the bio-bubble when the team was touring England last year.
His retirement news comes after the shocking retirement of his colleague, Bhanuka Rajapaksa, from all formats of the game. The Sri Lankan Cricket (SLC) board continues to lose its players for reasons that haven’t been revealed as of yet.
Always been an honour to play for my country – Danushka Gunathilaka
Gunathilaka played just eight Tests for Sri Lanka and scored 299 runs at a poor average of 18.7. He had begun cementing himself in the white-ball team before his ban following the bubble breach 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,” Gunathilaka told according to a report from Newswire.
His future in the limited-overs format is brighter. Gunathilaka has played 44 ODIs and 27 T20Is so far. He has scored 1520 runs at an average of 36.19 with two centuries in ODIs. As for the shortest format, he has 542 runs coming at an average of 20.84.
Apart from batsmanship, Gunathilaka can also contribute with his right-arm off-breaks and has taken 15 wickets in international cricket so far. He has been sidelined from the national team due to behavioural issues but will be hoping to make a comeback to the side very soon.
